Cash for Gold Scams
If you watch television, listen to the radio or read any sort of periodical there’s no doubt you’ve seen or heard the “Cash for Gold” advertisements. In down economic times you may be tempted to send one of these companies some of your jewelry, and if times are really bad, you might consider even sending in some sentimental family heirlooms in the hopes of making ends meet for another couple of weeks. Before you send any type of gold to such a company, we highly suggest you reconsider.
The internet is full of sites warning of the Cash for Gold type companies and for good reasons. And many message boards and blogs where the companies are mentioned end up turning into sounding boards for irate sellers who fell for the scam. In addition to paying way below market prices for gold, these companies often attribute no value to any jewelry that has any type of stones (including valuable diamonds and other precious stones), which the company will say needs to be “processed.” Also, they do not give any value to silver jewelry or other items that are sent to them. And God forbid you send them a nice piece of jewelry that is platinum.
These companies also do not attribute any additional value for antique or collectible gold jewelry. Many pieces of jewelry, especially antique jewelry have values that far exceed the weight of the metal’s value. So your Grandma’s Tiffany 18k bracelet would be considered to be the same thing as he old gold fillings.
For some further information on such scams and more in depth tactics used by the companies, visit this website, or simply do a search in Google for “cash for gold scams” – with over half a million results, there’s lots of info out there.
So how do you sell your gold? That’s a good question that many people obviously don’t know, otherwise the Cash for Gold companies would not be able to afford to spend millions on advertising. The first thing you need to do is determine an estimated value of your gold. The gold price at this very moment is $916.38 per troy ounce or $835 per regular ounce. To get real time gold prices, we suggest this online precious metals calculator. At the current gold price an average men’s class ring would be worth around $80 in scrap (using 6-7 g / ~4 pennyweight).
If your gold jewelry is not antique and was just purchased at a department store or jewelry store chain, it is unlikely to be worth much more than the scrap value when trying to sell it to anyone. Obviously fancy engagement rings with diamonds would have additional value, and a jeweler should be consulted for an appraisal. If your jewelry is antique, ask your local jeweler for an appraisal and get a second opinion from a knowledgeable antique jewelry dealer in your area – any antique store should be able to recommend someone.
Who do you sell your gold to? Basically anyone who will give you a fair value. Most buyers of gold and jewelry will give you roughly the same price (approximately 80% of the current gold market value). Anyone offering significantly less should be avoided. Buyers who are easily found anywhere include just about any jewelry store, pawn shops, decent resale or thrift stores, and just about any antique store. Whoever you choose to buy your jewelry should never take any value off for diamonds in the jewelry. Semi-precious stones and pearls may or may not result in a lowered value depending on their size and number on the jewelry in question.
