Anyone ever sold gold jewelry??

bclover

bclover

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Going through a dresser draw yesterday in my annual, "oh my God the year is almost up and I haven't gotten around to my New Years resolution to declutter" scramble, I realized I had a bunch of old gold jewelry.

Mainly it consist of 14K gold earrings that I lost the mates to, a few rings that somehow shrunk over time and don't fit my fingers ;) and a couple of chains that broke.

Has anyone sold their old jewelry for cash? Any tips?
 
I have not. A few years ago a friend of mine took all her unwanted gold to one of those "We buy gold" places, where they weighed it and gave her the cash value. This was when gold prices were near their all-time high (somewhere around $1800-$1900/oz.), so she was delighted.

I just checked and the spot gold price seems to be around $1225/oz. The buyers would give you somewhat less, as your gold is likely not 24kt and to cover their administrative costs and a built-in profit margin.

Jewelers will often buy gold pieces for the value of the gold, also.

It's much more difficult to find someone who wants to buy jewelry pieces and keep them intact, unless the pieces are spectacular, popular designs, and/or made by a known "name". (e.g. Tiffany, Faberge)

omni
 
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DW and I used midwest refineries and sold a bunch of old jewelry (like gold bands). Not much but maybe a few hundred dollars worth. Basically you box it up and send it (insured/trackable) to them and they pay 95% of the spot price of gold:

http://www.midwestrefineries.com

Their website is dated but they were totally legit in my experience. We got the check pretty fast, maybe within a week. Amounts matched my estimate based on weight and karat.

We didn't have any fine pieces where the workmanship would have made it worthwhile to try and sell for anything but melt value.
 
DW took all the old stuff she had through the years and went and had it made into somethings that she would wear. Worked out great fort her.
 
Jack_Pine said:
DW took all the old stuff she had through the years and went and had it made into somethings that she would wear. Worked out great fort her.
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That is what we did. We took my DW's engagement ring from her late husband, and my bracelet from my late wife, and turned it into a beautiful piece that she wears now
 

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Go to two reputable stores if it's alot. You will find they pay different prices which can add up!
 
I have not sold any, but I was in a coin store when people came in to sell gold jewelry and some proof sets.

For the jewelry, they guy did some scratch tests with acid and then offered them a price. For the proof sets and some other stuff that people were bringing in he looked and then quoted a price.

I thought he must be a genius to calculate all the prices so fast, but later I realized that he was offering such a low price that any mistakes he might be making was baked in.

I would be careful in case you run into a guy like that. He also seemed to make up his own spot price and claimed that Internet spot prices were not accurate and that he had the "professional" accurate prices.
 
After my Mom died in 2011, my sister and I both went through her jewelry box. There was nothing that struck me as something I would wear and same for my sister. We each picked a sentimental piece to keep, mine was her one small real pearl necklace and a charm from her childhood.

My sister asked me to sell anything else that I could. Very little of it was of any value, but I did find a few small gold items. I took them to 2 gold buyers. One was a little stand alone shop with security glass and a pass through drawer and the other was a local jeweler that had done a repair for me earlier. They both tested the items which agreed with the markings on the items.

Their evaluations were within a few dollars and I sold the items to the local jeweler, just because I was more comfortable there.

The gold price that day was $1726/oz (1/26/12). We had less than half an ounce and some of it was 14k and some was 10k and the amount is discounted for their processing, etc. I split the money with my sister and she was thrilled because I had handled it all while she was on a cruise.
 
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After wifey died and I retired (with lots of free time) I went through her collection and sold all the gold and silver w/o stones. A little local jeweler with a fair price and no cheating.
 
I took a bunch of odds and ends to a We Buy Gold place and got about 50% of the meltdown value of the metal. I calculated that by taking the weight times the % of gold (14/24 for 14 kt) times the spot price. Remember that you have to use troy ounces, not avoirdupois, to match the spot price. This calculation assumed that the value of the other metals was zero.

Getting 95% of the spot price sounds extraordinarily generous since they incur expenses refining it.
 
Yes. When we were downsizing a few years ago gold was in the $1800 range.

We took our gold to our local jeweler. He sent it to a refiner. He took a ten percent commission. Good experience.

Waiting for gold to go up again as we have more items to unload.
 
Most coin dealers will buy gold. Some jewelry stores too. I would check for offers at several places.
 
I got rid of some dental gold at a jewelry store locally - didn't really have a good feeling about the discount/price afterwards. Bought Philharmonics from these people and was happy enough. They have a calculator that may be of use - grams * carats - discount = $
https://www.ajpm.com/gold-scrap-calculator/
 
After my Dad passed away several years ago we came across several old gold rings and a few odds and ends of jewelry. Close to where we lived at the time there was a strip mall with a store front that said We Buy Gold. I decided one day to stop in and see if I could find out a. what was real gold and what was not, and b. what would be approx. scrap value of any gold items. I explained to the women right of front that I did not plan to sell, I was mostly interested to find out what was real gold and what was not.

The few items were tested and weighed in just a matter of a few minutes. I was told that they would pay me $145 for the gold items. Since that seemed fairly low value I said no thanks, and repeated that I was mostly interested to see what was real and the approx. worth. When I started to get up to leave the woman upped the offer to $305 with some story how she could combine it was some other larger consignment of gold that someone else had just brought in. I couldn't see what difference that would make to more than double the original offer but I thanked her kindly for her help and left.

The last offer of $305 might have been the correct value but I had a feeling this was a slimey business and I had no confidence in doing business with them.
 
If you want to do this you should first buy a gram scale and weight each piece and also record the karat quality. Figure the amount of pure gold you have, look up the spot price and the offer should be at least 80% of that.

I think the shop I used paid 85%. Lots of them do "low ball" as they think the customer needs the dough and didn't do their homework.
 
Absolutely.

And beware of scales. A number of years ago I was in St. Thomas. Picked out a gold bangle for DW (she was not on the trip). I asked the salesperson to weight it. The store had a digital scale on the counter. He did. Then I pointed to the back of the store and asked him to re weight on the scale at the back.

Guess what? Scales were different. The scale at the front indicated a higher weight. Salesperson was not pleased. I got the price I was willing to pay.

Our jeweler sorted the stuff out between 10, 14, and 18K. Weighed it up, gave the approx price per gram, and off we sent it.

I would be very reluctant to deal with some of the storefront cash for gold operations.
 
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