Estate Sales & Auction Blog

From family heirlooms to fabulous secondhand finds, nothing evokes fun yet elegant entertaining like antique and vintage sterling silver and silver-plate. What's not to love about the sparkle of silver when entertaining family and friends during the holidays? Polishing ... that's what. Check out this de-tarnishing hack that'll make you yearn to start your own silver collection.

Every August, National Wear Your Mother's Jewelry Day occurs without much fanfare and without much notice. But this year, we got to thinking, what might be so special about your mother's (or grandmother's) jewelry that there's a day dedicated to it? That question led us to consider all jewelry passed down from our forbears ... heirloom jewelry and to inquire for industry experts their tips for sourcing and passing down heirloom jewelry.

Writer. Activist. Traveler. Critic. The estate collection of Patricia K. Brooks encapsulates the life of this well-rounded, well-traveled woman. Learn more about her life, works, and life's collections.

"Creating art is a necessary experience in my daily life. It has made me aware of really seeing and feeling everything around me rather than just looking at the world." Discover how Norma Flanagan broke the traditional housewife mold of the era and embarked on a life surround by art.

Last week, we focused on all the fabulous shades of colored diamonds (brown, yellow, green, blue, red, pink, and purple). This week, our gemologist, Susan Leeper, brings us the glamour, allure, and extraordinary timelessness of the black diamond....

Who says diamonds should be white? Did you know that diamonds come naturally in a wide array of colors and hues ranging from the most common -- browns -- to the extraordinarily rare red diamond? Since the diamond is April's birthstone, we are celebrating the mighty diamond.

Did you know that BRG's jewelry department has a GIA graduate gemologist and jewelry expert on staff? We recently sat down with her to learn the best DIYs to properly clean, store, and care for the treasures lying in your jewelry box.

Some terms don't necessarily fall into the neat categories of gemology or metallurgy, but are nonetheless good to know. We've collected some miscellaneous jewelry terms -- most of them have to do with embellishments. Here are our terms of miscellany.

Since the dawn of the Bronze Age, metals (precious, semi-precious, and non-precious) have become ubiquitous with jewelry. From tin to gold, popularity and values of metals ebb and flow. In our sixth installment of our jewelry series, learn some key terms and metals used in jewelry today.

Large. Small. Opaque. Clear. Antique. Vintage, Contemporary. Gems come in different shapes, sizes, colors, clarities, and age. Learn some gemology basics in part V of our jewelry series, Bring on the Blingology.