There are currently at least 3 if not 4 gold buying outlets in my hometown of about 40,000 people. 5 years ago there were none. 3 year ago there was 1 and now a relative explosion of them. I’m curious how these are viable businesses. I know times are tough for many people here and they’re looking for cash but in the first instance how much gold is lying around in people’s houses that it is worth renting a premises to target them. I understand the mail order method and that too is used here but an actual store whose only purpose is CASH 4 GOLD, in a smallish town seems completely unviable to me.
I can only give you an answer that relates to our operation in Northern Ohio/USA.
The average person brings in over $200 worth of gold, but we might get 50 of those/day. If someone just has an old wedding band, it might only be $50-$100. Some women have quite a few chains, bracelets, earrings, etc. and more than a few walk away $500-1500. But what’s important is what percentage of the scrap value you pay.
We pay about 75% of what it scraps for. Smaller places pay anywhere from 15-60% of final value. Our local cash4gold stores pay about half of what we do. So, for every $100 they spend, they make $200 on the transaction. Not a bad return.
Note, too, that gold prices have tripled since 2001. So in addition to times being hard, that old wedding ring from your first marriage that has been rattling around in the back of your jewelry box is suddenly worth the bother of selling.
I’ve sold a bit of my jewelry in these places over the years. One of the things that strikes me is the low overhead that these places seem to have. They do have to pay rent, but how much beyond that? They need some sort of table or desk, and a really good scale to weigh the gold on, and whatever chemicals are needed to test the gold. Beyond that, there’s no investment needed. They can stick around for as long as the neighborhood has gold to sell, and then they leave. I mean, it’s not like a retail store where they need all sorts of shelving and shopping carts and cash registers.
How much would a gold tooth get from a gold buying outlet? I have my uncles old tooth, but I dont know if it is worth taking it in.
Was your uncle a walrus?
For whatever reason a lot of gas stations around here have gone bust in the last 5 or 6 years and the gold places like to set up shop in them. I imagine that the overhead to rent an abandoned gas station is pretty cheap. I’ll bet that they can make their monthly nut in less than a days worth of business.
How much would a gold tooth get from a gold buying outlet? I have my uncles old tooth, but I dont know if it is worth taking it in.
No.
A store offered me 10 dollar for an old gold man’s plain wedding band. It wasn’t flimsy.
That had to be too little, no?
Gold is currently selling for about £27/$43 a gram. Not sure how pure or how heavy a gold tooth would be, a few grams maybe?
When selling gold for scrap, you’ll be offered a fraction of it’s scrap value. I’ve heard that Jewellers generally offer the best rates (up to 75% maybe?), while the mail in firms can offer as little as 10%.
Some comedian had a funny bit about, oh god, times are hard - they’re cutting the water off tomorrow and we might get evicted if we can’t come up with some cash… oh, I forgot about all that pirate treasure in the basement!
I have a buddy who’s been married a few times and still had his wedding ring from a previous marriage rattling around in his house. His new wife wanted it gone - now - so he gave it to me and just told me to get rid of it, he didn’t want anything for it. I took it to three different places - a Cash4Gold proper, an estate buyer, and a jewelry store. Cash4Gold offered me $15 straight out. The estate buyer offered me $75 and the jeweler offered me $10 towards a new purchase, so nothing really. It would seem there’s a bit of variance in what different places will offer so it may pay to shop around. This band was from a Mall Jewler and is white gold with diamond chips set in it and he paid $1600 for it, so I just kept it. It’s in a pint glass on my dresser with some assorted baubles and coins.
Cluricaun, indeed! From 1600 to 10 bucks in a few years…some investment, eh? i guess a ring like that would be bring more if sold on e-bay.
Everyone should keep in mind that when such prices are quoted, that is for pure gold. Jewelry is often 18 karat, which is only 75% gold. Therefore, if someone would have one gram of 18k jewelry, and was offered £20/$32, that would represent zero profit, and anyone thinking otherwise should readjust his thinking.
Well he bought it at perhaps the worst possible place, a chain jewler. I have family in the jewelry business and I know from them that they A.tend to sell inferior product and B. tend to mark things up into the stratosphere.
If I take the $75 offer for the ring as being a fair one that means it was probably worth between $100 and $150 worth of gold. The diamonds aren’t worth squat to a gold buyer, so figure in maybe $100 worth of diamonds on top of that and you’re looking at a ring that was maybe really worth $250. Add in a few thousand percent markup and voila, $1600 mens wedding band.
We buy dental gold as 16K but really old stuff is probably closer to 18K. It really depends on the weight. We pay $24/gram for yellow dental. White dental we don’t buy.
What do you call “chip” in reference to diamonds? If they’re really that small, and the band is 14K, there’s little likelyhood it really cost him $1600. It was probably tagged with that retail price, and he got it for $700-1000. Still a rediculous price.
The fact is, you still only have about $75-150 in gold. And that’s all it’s ever gonna be worth on the resale market.
If there is a readily available and known “scrap value” what does it take to access that market? There must presumably be barriers to entry or people would just sell directly into that market rather than accepting 25% (or greater) less than the known “scrap value”.
It’s available, but not generally known to the average person. It would involve sending your stuff away through the mail and trusting the firm at the end would give you what you had coming. Most people won’t do that.
You forgot the work needed to transform a bit of gold and some diamonds into a wedding band.