jewelry through customs on k-1

[kannan 208]

My fiance will be bringing jewelry with her (most of the accumulated gold jewelry in the last 20-30 years, and also diamond wedding rings). Anybody had any experience with bringing lot of jewelry at POE? do you declare or not? do you have to pay duty? 

CBP website has this - "For Customs purposes, clothing, jewelry, photography equipment, portable radios, and vehicles are considered personal effects and cannot be brought in duty-free as household effects. However, duty is usually waived on personal effects more than one year of age. All vehicles are dutiable."

Would this be a big deal? if they ask her to pay duty, but what if she is not carrying enough money to pay duty?

[EandH0904 1,184]

If she has receipts showing that they are over 1 year old, she could bring those. 

I would guess that customs can tell the difference between jewelry that is 20-30 years old instead of jewelry that was purchased in the last week. It is a reasonable presumption that people traveling here to immigrate on a visa may have such personal effects whereas people who took a holiday for a week would probably not take jewelry with them that was 20-30 years old. 

[Andsco 89]

Honestly..I brought with me mine and nothing happened. I was moving here and on top of that, the jewelry is not a thing I was going to sell, so I didn't find a reason to declare it.  

[Ontarkie 14,225]

~~Moved to Moving Here and Your New Life, from K1 P&P - as the OP's question is not visa related.~~