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| Sunday, March 30, 2008 |
| Follow-up on selling gold jewlery |
Since I first posted about the WSJ article which details the process a reporter went through selling some gold jewelry - Turning Old Bling Into Fresh Green I have been working with my parents on trying to determine how much their old gold jewelry could be worth. While they decided to not try selling at this time, going through the process was interesting.
First my Mother gathered together a pile of gold chains, rings, charms, and watches. After looking for markings on each piece, we ended up with mostly 14K gold items (with just a couple of 10K gold chains). We took everything to a local "We Buy Gold" type store. That store visit was an experience in itself!
I called ahead to make sure I had correct directions and to find out where the best option for parking could be found. Luckily I had called, since it turns out the hours they post are really more of a guide than actual operating hours - by calling ahead I insured someone would really be there who could weigh and quote our gold.
Once I found the place, entering it required ringing a doorbell and being buzzed into a small vestibule with a narrow counter in front of a bulletproof window. The gold buyer employee pushed a shallow round tray through the opening in the window and had us pile all of the gold onto it. He verified using his eyepiece that each piece was really gold and its karot. After weighing the gold piece and then looking over the watches separately he gave us two prices.
For the gold jewelry he offered $400.00 and for the three old gold pocket watches $250. We thanked him, gathered up our items and said we would think about it. I did ask him to tell me how much the gold weighed and he said we had 24 pennyweights of 14K gold. For the watches he was estimating how much gold they contained when giving the price since the only way he could be sure was to dismantle them and separate the non-gold components from the gold. The two 10K chains were so light, he said the value was negligible.
When I got home after that visit, I quickly found the online site the WSJ reporter had used to ultimately sell her gold - US Gold Buyers and they list right on the front page of the site how much they are paying per pennyweight for gold. So some quick math showed me that my local buyer's offer of $400.00 for 24 pennyweight of 14K gold was giving me a price of $16.66 per pennyweight. That same day the online site was quoting $25.00 per pennyweight. So, if my parents really wanted to sell their gold, going with the local guy would mean they would get 50% LESS than they would have if going with the online broker.
Of course the local dealer would have given them the $400.00 cash on the spot if they decided to sell that day. Meanwhile, to use the online service, you have to be willing to call, wait for a mailing kit to arrive, place your valuables in the kit, mail it to them, get a quote on the day the gold arrives, and then say yes or no to the price. If you say yes, they send you a check in a couple of days. If you say no, they mail your gold back to you. Then there is the minimum weight problem, the prices quoted on the US Gold Buyers site is for 5 ounces or higher. My parents 24 pennyweight of gold is about 1.3 ounces - so below the minimum. The WSJ article noted that US Gold Buyers would likely still buy the lower amount, but your quote would be a bit lower - so my parents would likely get less than $600 from them. How much less I am not sure, since we decided not to pursue it at this time. However, I believe it would still be more than the $400 quoted by the local guy.Troy Weight
traditional system of weight in the British Isles based on the grain, pennyweight (24 grains), ounce (20 pennyweights), and pound (12 ounces). The troy grain, pennyweight, and ounce have been used since the Middle Ages to weigh gold, silver, and other precious metals and stones. - Encyclopædia Britannica Labels: Gold |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 12:30 PM *
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| 4 Comments: |
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Thanks for posting your experience on this.
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Well, what's the deal about trying to sell gold, unless your parents really *need* the money ?
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BostonGal,
I wouldn't count on being able to send your gold to US Goldbuyers. I was there last week in person and they told me that they are overwhelmed with customers and they temporarily stopped receiving shipments. Look for a blog post soon about my experience with selling my gold.
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Hi Calgirlfinance,
Yes, their website does have a statement up saying they are overwhelmed at the moment with customers from the WSJ article.
If my parents had said they wanted to move forward with the sale of their gold, a next step I would have taken, now that I know the pennyweight of the pieces, would be to call local Boston gold buyers and see if any would quote me a better deal closer to the US Goldbuyers published prices.
If that had failed, then I would have looked into using them.
My preference would be to deal with a buyer locally. To walk in with the gold and out with cash-in-hand. On my first visit to the local seller, I was uninformed. I did not know the amount of gold I had, nor did I have a sense of what the fair market value of that amount was.
Now that I have done a bit of research I am much better prepared to ensure that if and when my parents do want to sell, that they will get the best possible price now that we know more about the true value of the commodity.
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Thanks for posting your experience on this.