All that glitters…

We recently received a rather unusual donation for Alzheimer’s Research UK – a selection of rings, all boxed, and a plastic bag full of odd bits of jewellery. These were donated by kind supporters (anonymously) and it was up to me to turn their donations into ‘research hours’.

The small bits of jewellery included some broken gold which we sent away for a cash exchange via a friendly jeweller, which left us with the collection of rings, a silver and emerald bracelet and a pair of lovely brooches.

In all my years in marketing, I’ve never sold or marketed jewellery, and knowing very little other than ‘that looks pretty/sparkly/old’, I am not an expert. Our friendly jeweller took a look and told us what was worth keeping and what was not, and we visited our local auction house, Willingham Auctions.

More than happy to take our assortment of jewellery, they also very kindly waived their auction fees so we would receive 100% of the bid price for our little collection. I wish I’d been there for the auction, having watched lots of antique shows on the television I would have loved to attend, but probably ended up bringing home something totally impractical and unnecessary.

We certainly appreciate the extra contribution our wonderful supporters make to us in this – and many other – ways.

At their specialist auction on 13 December, our items raised £350, with three little rings getting the highest price of £100.

It may not seem like a huge amount of money, but it will pay for around 17 hours of research. And hopefully those pieces will give their new owners pleasure.

The remainder of our cache will be put onto eBay, where we can allocate 100% of the sale price (minus the site fees, of course) to Alzheimer’s Research UK. Anyone selling on the online auction site can allocate part or all of the sale price to a charity and we regularly receive notifications of many and diverse things being sold whereby we are the beneficiaries.

It doesn’t have to be glittery, it doesn’t have to be gold, but we certainly appreciate the extra contribution our wonderful supporters make to us in this – and many other – ways.