Selling vintage jewellery online in the UK: hallmarks, ivory and listings

This comes from Hallmarking: how businesses can comply with the law, last updated on 9 December 2021. Note that it is about the shop as a whole, not one listing. The same guidance also covers what is displayed on premises, so if you sell at a fair or from a cabinet too, read it in full.

Artifactly publishes your listings to eBay, Etsy, Shopify and WooCommerce. Making sure the notice is displayed where it needs to be is your job, not the software's.

eBay's jewellery policy is the page to read, and we link it rather than summarise it so you see the current wording. When software helps write the listing, the risk is a disclosure that gets lost on the way.

1. Write the disclosure into your notes before the AI drafts anything, in plain words: what the metal is, whether it is plated, whether a stone is treated, lab-created or simulated, and how you know.
2. Check the draft title. Artifactly cuts eBay titles to 80 characters rather than rewriting them, so a disclosure at the end of a long title can be cut off. Put it early.
3. Fill in the item specifics. Some eBay categories require them, and Artifactly reports any required ones that are missing before you publish.
4. Read the full description once more before you publish. You are the seller of record, not the AI.

If you also list on Etsy, the same description goes there, so a clear disclosure written once serves both. Our guide to cross listing between eBay and Etsy covers the differences between the two listings.

Ivory can turn up in vintage jewellery as inlays, beads or carved panels. GOV.UK's guide to dealing in items containing ivory or made of ivory (updated 24 July 2026) says dealing includes advertising and inviting an offer, and displaying an item for sale in a shop or gallery. So a listing is dealing, even before it sells.

Those are not all of the exemptions, so read the GOV.UK page for your piece, including how to register it. The 3 March 1947 date also matters under the rules on worked specimens from endangered species, so check that page for any piece made from an endangered species.

If you are not sure whether a piece contains ivory, do not list it until you are. The AI drafts from your photos and notes; it cannot tell you whether a piece is legal to sell.

Etsy's fees above come from its fees page, payment processing page and regulatory fee page; some carry VAT. We have not put a figure on eBay's jewellery category here because we did not record it when we checked the fee page.

Selling pieces you inherited? HMRC's guidance on income from online platforms says selling your own unwanted things probably means no Income Tax, but a single item sold for over £6,000 may bring Capital Gains Tax. Buying to sell on is trading, and past the £1,000 trading allowance you must tell HMRC.

Jewellery often sits alongside other stock. If you also sell silver, ceramics or glass, see the page for vintage homeware sellers; if you trade from a cabinet, see antique centre dealers; and if you are selling a collection, see collectors.

Artifactly's AI uses Google's Gemini with instructions written by working antique and vintage dealers, and those instructions cover jewellery and silver. From your photos and notes it drafts a title, a description with a history and provenance section, a category, dimensions and condition notes. It is a draft. Your reading of the marks is the evidence; the AI's wording is not.

• Photograph the marks, the clasp, the back and any repair. eBay allows up to 24 pictures and Etsy up to 20 (Etsy's limits), but Artifactly sends up to 10 photos to Etsy, so put the most telling ones first.
• Write what each mark says as you read it, and say "unmarked" when it is. Never let a draft name a maker you cannot evidence.
• Record how you dated the piece. Etsy may ask how you sourced and dated a vintage item, and Artifactly sends Etsy's "when was it made" answer with the listing.
• Give the condition plainly: wear to plating, replaced stones, re-soldered links, a later clasp.

For a run of similar pieces, bulk AI description regeneration lets you redraft many descriptions at once after you have improved your notes, and bulk edit changes the category, status or price of up to 500 products at a time.

The Global Shipment Manager lets you compare courier rates, generates packaging labels and packing slips, produces customs declarations and commercial invoices for parcels going abroad, and sends live tracking updates to buyers. We have not listed carriers' compensation limits for jewellery here, so check the carrier's own terms against the value of the piece before you book.

Photograph the piece and the sealed parcel before it goes. If a buyer reports a problem, those photos and your listing description are your record of what you sent.

• The AI works from photos and your notes. It cannot test metal, identify a stone or tell you whether a piece is legal to sell.
• No cost price or profit tracking, and no record of which tray, box or cabinet a piece is in.
• No printable tear sheets.
• One price for every marketplace. You cannot charge more on Etsy than on eBay.
• Sales on eBay and Etsy are picked up about every 5 minutes, not the moment they happen. Sales on Ready-to-List sites are marked sold by hand.
• No direct Vinted connection yet (copy and paste only), and no Depop, Whatnot or Amazon.
• It is not a till. A piece sold in person has to be marked sold in Artifactly by hand.
• Plans are limited by product count (250 on The Curator, 500 on The Dealer, unlimited on The Showroom), and Ready-to-List starts on The Dealer.

If those gaps do not rule it out, see the plans and prices, or read about our antique dealer software for the full feature set, or browse all seller types.