Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In this current economic climate, where is the BEST place to sell your unwanted gold jewelry for a decent price? Does such a place exist? I know there's no way close to getting retail value, but I'd like to feel I'm getting a good fraction of what I originally paid.
I have been advised to sell to:
1. Local jewelry stores (on consignment, no quick sale)
2. Local pawnshops (pennies on the dollar)
3. Craigslist/Ebay (lots of competition)
4. Online buying services (scams?)
And what about the diamonds in some of that jewelry? Should they be removed and sold separately? How does one go about that?
In this current economic climate, where is the BEST place to sell your unwanted gold jewelry for a decent price? Does such a place exist? I know there's no way close to getting retail value, but I'd like to feel I'm getting a good fraction of what I originally paid.
I have been advised to sell to:
1. Local jewelry stores (on consignment, no quick sale)
2. Local pawnshops (pennies on the dollar)
3. Craigslist/Ebay (lots of competition)
4. Online buying services (scams?)
And what about the diamonds in some of that jewelry? Should they be removed and sold separately? How does one go about that?
Help!
Sell to a jeweler for resale ,or gold/diamond price, and be done with it. There is no way to recover much more than 20% of what you paid unless piece is unique in some way.
When selling gold - look up the trade price for gold (its easily found - its a standard published trading commodities price)... last I checked (several months ago) it was approx. $1000/oz.
So you want to make sure that you're dealing with someone who is paying a fair comparison to that number. Keep in mind that number is for PURE gold (i.e. 24K)... if you have 10K, 14K, 18k, that number gets diminished proportionately.
We sold a little gold last year - the market price was $924/oz. The dealer was paying approx $905 per oz. So - basically taking 3% for their fee/profit.
I felt that was very fair. Especially since other places I called were offering me $750, $775 an oz. Ack!
As far as jewelers -- unless its really exquisite, they often aren't going to pay any more than the gold value for the piece - as they will probably remove stones and sell the setting to melt it down, or - remelt and recast it themselves.
If it is a beautiful estate type piece (i.e. antique with a 3k stone) - then you may get more selling it to a dealer or jeweler. Get it appraised and see what its worth in that case so that you have info.
Remember - there are reputable companies that buy gold in just about every larger city -- just make sure you call first and find out what their price is. They'll be able to quote you over the phone as they do this all the time.
I sold a 10K white gold ring last summer and did a tiny bit of homework before I let anyone take me for too much of a ride.
Basically all you do is have a jeweler weigh the piece to get the grams, figure out what Carat the gold is (will be engraved on the piece somewhere), look up the spot price of gold for the day, and punch the info into one of the many simple online calculators you can find by Googling.
This will give a you a very accurate idea of the value of the precious metal content. They'll offer you something very close to that number if they're being straight shooters. (minus a smaller broker fee...5% maybe.) This is basically the melt value is what they told me.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I find it kind of interesting that someone said expect to get 20% and someone else got 97% of market value. Seems like an awful big spread. I went to one of these gold and silver buyer places yesterday with some old 14K jewelry. They offered about $400. When I looked up the market value based on the current price of gold, I'm seeing $740 for 25 grams of 14K. So they wanted to give me 54% of market value. I think I'll shop around a little bit more, I felt like I was getting low-balled there.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
