I have several pieces of jewelry that I’m never, ever going to wear. Things like a wedding band from my first husband, an ugly bracelet and several rings from my second husband, broken chains… The usual. With gold trading at such a high price lately, I think I’d rather have cash, but I suspect that there may be a few less-than-honest cash for gold businesses out there, so I’d like to know what to expect.
My basic plan is to gather up the jewelry, and then visit three local businesses that buy gold, and get quotes. At least one of these businesses will quote on jewelry with stones, and at least one other will return the stones if I wish. I’ll then weigh my options and decide whether/to whom to sell.
Anyone done this recently? Did you net more or less than you expected? Did you use a local buyer, or a national service? What should I watch out for?
Along those same lines, I have a small collection of coins, ranging from the interesting-but-probably-not-valuable (like US pennies issued during the Philippine occupation,) to interesting and probably a little more valuable (British and American silver coins, mostly,) to at least one coin that’s probably pretty valuable. A couple of the coins have more sentimental value to me than monetary, so I’ll hang on to those, but I’m considering converting the rest to ready cash. I plan to start by taking them to a local coin/currency dealer for an evaluation/offer, and then to find another dealer for the same. I’ll use those as a starting point to decide whether/what to sell.
Same questions as about selling gold: What should I be careful of?
I haven’t done it myself, but (hee hee, I’m about to commit Dope suicide) I saw an Inside Edition report on it. Their conclusions were that selling to local buyers is by far the best option. You’ll get much more money than if you use a national service. It makes sense to me.
Pawn shops are probably the worst way to go. I’ve hear that ‘Gold Parties’ are good places to sell gold, as the buy rate tends to be high(er). Craigslist introduces the opportunity for higher-price sales, but will take a lot more work and time.
The national services that advertise heavily can be counted on to pay too little. Alternatively, there’s Garfield Refining, which has been around a long time and has a good reputation. I’ve sent dental gold to them and been very happy with their service and pay rates.
I sold a valuable coin earlier this year. One local coin shop offered me something like 30% LESS than the value of the gold in the coin. I sold it to another shop that offered a little more than the gold value. Definitely do your homework here.
I’d be more than happy (and there are others here as well who would be) to give you ballparks on the coins. Provide denominations and mintmarks, if any, and condition- pics would be ideal.
Wow - that would be hugely helpful! I’ll have to get them (I put them in my mom’s safe during our move last winter, and just haven’t retrieved them… Procrastinate? Moi?) I’ll try to get to that on my next day off.
The “probably pretty valuable” coin is a gold US $2.50 piece (quarter eagle.) I don’t remember exactly what year, but I think 1926. Definitely 1920s, though. Appears to me in quite good condition, but I know nothing about coin grading.
“Maybe pretty valuable” includes a decent handful of late-nineteenth/early-twentieth century silver dollars, half dollars, along with English equivalents. Again, the ones I may sell seem in pretty good shape.
As for the other advice so far, I had an idea that the national services were mostly pretty shady. I plan to take my stuff to one reputable local jeweler, two “we buy gold” businesses, and a pawn shop that has a good reputation and has been in business here since the 1930s.
If you can take nice pictures, and upload them to a photobucket account (or something similar), it would be great. Your “quite good condition” may not be a dealer’s.
For example, your 1920s Quarter Eagle is, right now, intrinsically worth about $167.00. If it’s in any kind of uncirculated shape, you could sell it (not to a dealer, they need to make a profit, but likely privately or on ebay) for maybe double that. But the price ramps up almost geometrically with each increasing grade point (the scale is 1-70, uncirculated is the range from 60-70).
The prices for completed sales at Heritage Auctions, a reputable and respected auction site, for a PCGS-graded (the most-respected grading company) range something like $250-ish for High 50s grades, up to a couple thousand for grades in the 64 range. And ridiculous amounts for higher grades.
I know much more about silver than gold.
FWIW, all 1920s Quarter Eagles, regardless of exact date and mint, are about comparable in price, at least in the more common grades - there may be huge differences when you get to the elite grades.
Dates and mintmarks are very important - for the silver dollars, a CC (Carson City) mint mark can make a tenfold difference in value over an S (San Francisco) mint mark.
Rather than start a whole new thread for what should be a simple question, I thought I’d piggy-back on this one:
My long-held assumption was that, for silver and gold bullion, dealers sold at a markup, but bought at spot. I visited a shop today (a coin/pawn shop, but a nice looking one, not a dive or “cash 4 gold” type) and was offered spot minus $2 on my 1 ounce Englehard Prospector rounds. I declined.
Was my assumption (dealers buying for spot) wrong? If so, is spot - $2 four 1oz silver rounds within reason, or should I look elsewhere?
Honestly I couldn’t answer that question, but I’ll just ask a question in return. You went in expecting them to offer spot (and presumably would have accepted that) and they offered you $2 less than what you were expecting, so you declined? $2 is practically a rounding error on the price of gold or silver. It’s what? 5% less? It’ll cost you more than that in time and gas to get a second opinion from another dealer anyway.