Precious Metals » selling

Old gold

Administrator — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 13:56:21 +0000

This is a great blog post by the folks at Mardon Jeweler’s in Riverside, CA. It has a perfect example/explanation of why we never use “old gold” in our work, but use recycled gold in every piece we make. While re-using gold from your old jewelry to make new pieces sounds both practical and romantic, it actually can be more costly (in the long run) than if you sell your old pieces for scrap and make the new piece from clean recycled metal.

All that glitters

Administrator — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:48:40 +0000

http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2010/03/05/all_that_glitters_may_not_be_cash/

Great article about selling gold. While Precious Metals buys gold, we will ALWAYS tell you exactly what we pay per pennyweight and will convert that to a per gram price if you request. We will break it down to the exact percentage that we pay (63%). Which mean that if the market value of the earrings in the article is $14.64, we would pay $9.23. That is more than what the dealers in the article pay, but more importantly, if the earrings were brand new (the examples in the article were just purchased) we would have advised you not to sell them as scrap! Never sell a piece of wearable jewelry as scrap unless you are desperate or have exhausted other options. Selling jewelry on e-bay or at a consignment store will allow you to get money for the workmanship and wearablity of the gold along with it’s market value as a precious metal. We also do metal exchanges. Say you have some 14K gold chains, and you want us to make a 14K gold ring. We will use the weight of your metal towards the weight of the metal in the new piece less ten percent. So essentially you are getting 90% of the value of the gold back.

Bottom line, do your research. Get quotes, and if you aren’t getting clear answers, don’t waste your time.

Selling your old gold: Shopping around

Administrator — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:43:27 +0000

If you have some old gold to sell it is important to shop around. Due to high market values, the gold buying business has gotten very competitive in the past two years. Every one who buys gold has a different system for determining their prices, but almost all pay by unit of weight and karat. Call several places and ask them what they are currently paying for the standard karats of gold (10K, 14K, 18K etc.) Be wary of businesses that wont give you a price over the phone. Most legitimate buyers have a set formula and should be able to tell you a per gram or per pennyweight price. Some businesses have different prices for different quantities of gold, which will work against you if you only have a small amount of gold. Keep in mind that the market price changes about every ten minutes so the price could go up or down very quickly.

As for unit of weight, some use grams and some use pennyweights (dwt.). A pennyweight is 1/20 of a troy ounce. To convert grams to pennyweights multiply by .64301. To convert pennyweights to grams multiply by 1.5552. When you get pricing from different gold buyers, make sure to convert all of the prices into one unit before going with the highest bidder. Say you have 2dwt 14K gold, that is 3.11 grams. If someone says I’ll pay $14 a pennyweight that’s $28; if they say $14 a gram that’s $43.54.

Once you find the store which pays the most per unit, find out what their policies are. When it comes to selling gold, almost every buyer has a final sale policy. (See the last post about selling items of sentimental value). Some will pay cash, some by check. Some stores will pay more if you use the money as credit towards a purchase. Do they remove stones like diamonds, do they buy the diamonds, or do they leave the diamonds in the jewelry? Do they buy any jewelry as jewelry or only as scrap? Can they advise you on which pieces are better sold as jewelry and not scrap?

At Precious Metals we try to offer competitive pricing, but we would never claim to have the highest payout. First, there are too many gold buyers in Boston and its surrounding towns and cities to possibly know what they all pay. We also don’t negotiate pricing. Some buyers will offer you a low price, but will negotiate up to a higher one. They are hoping that the seller will take the low price without haggling. We offer one price to all of our customers who get paid by check. It is the highest price we can offer. We do, however, pay out more if the money is used towards a purchase or repair, but the entire amount must be used.

Why should you sell at Precious Metals?
Because we will tell you what to sell as scrap and what not to sell. If you have a nice necklace that you could get more money for if you sold it on ebay or craigslist, we’ll tell you. Not only that, we’ll help you. We can show you how to post on either of those popular websites, take close up pictures of your jewelry, and help you determine a fair asking price, at no charge. If you don’t want to sell online there are several consignment stores we can recommend as well.
Any stones that are easily removed we will remove at no charge. We will also give you an honest evaluation of the stones.
Our pricing structure is entirely transparent. We’ll go through the math with you from the market price to the price you are paid. If you don’t like the price we are offering, there are no obligations.
We pride our selves on our honesty and superior customer service. There are more than a few gold buyers who will be happy to buy your wearable jewelry at scrap prices and sell it on ebay or in their store for ten times what they paid you.

Selling Gold. Part One of Four.

Administrator — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:48:48 +0000

We buy gold at Precious Metals, and we get a lot of questions about the whole process. The nightly news is talking about how to sell your gold and showing hidden camera investigations. There are ads for mail-in services playing on every TV channel, and many jewelry stores have signs in their windows saying “We buy gold!” and “Highest Prices Paid!”. So, I’m going to break down the whole process in a series of posts.

What are you selling?

First of all, before you go to sell your gold you should have some idea of what it is that you are selling. If you take your jewelry to a pawn shop, consignment store, or estate jewelry store, you can sell your jewelry as jewelry. The price is determined by both the value of the materials as well as the workmanship or labor that went into producing the piece. If you take your jewelry to a store that proclaims “We Buy Gold!” like Precious Metals Sudbury, you are selling your jewelry as scrap metal. I don’t care if your jewelry has never been worn or has been run over by a car; it is all scrap to me. I don’t care if it is your class ring or an earring you found on the street, it all gets melted down. The price is determined by the pure gold content and the current price of gold.
All of this means two things.
1. If you have nice jewelry, pieces that have little wear and are stylish, you should not sell them for scrap. Sell them on E-Bay or Craigslist (Remember to be safe! Meet in public and cash only.) or your local consignment store. Let’s say you have a nice necklace with a little precious stone in it or a gold bracelet from Tiffany & Co., the scrap price will typically be less than half of what you could get selling it on E-bay. This is especially true for brand name jewelry. ANYTHING by Yurmin, Tiffany & Co., Judith Ripka, or any other big name designer is worth trying to sell as jewelry.
2. You don’t have to know the exact weight and gold content of your pieces, but you should have realistic expectations. With the market hovering around $900 per troy ounce, the average 14K gold wedding band will fetch $20 to $70 at scrap pricing. There just isn’t that much gold in one small to mid-sized ring, especially when you take into account that the ring is only part gold. 14 Karat gold (which is the most common karat in the U.S) is 14 parts pure gold and 10 parts other metal (copper and nickel). You will only get paid for the gold. 14 Karat is 58.3% gold, just over half. 10 Karat gold is only 41.7% gold, less than half. Is your mother’s wedding band really only worth $30? In gold scrap, yes, in your mind, probably not. Don’t sell anything that you can’t part with, because the money will never cover the loss of a family heirloom. And, don’t think that by waiting for gold prices to go higher you will get way more money. If your ring is $30 at $900/oz, even if gold goes up to $1400, you are still only going to get around $50 or $60. Chances are, if you have trouble parting with it at $30, you’ll have trouble at $60, and you just shouldn’t sell it. I can’t pay you for your sentiment, and once you sell it, your memories are gone.

Next….Shopping around and what determines price?