I have both some junk silver and Kruggerands to sell. I see a ton of online options, plus some people saying coin dealers, but I’m not sure they have actual experience, or are just spitballing.
Any real and somewhat recent experiences out there with that?
Thanks
First, where are you located? Someone here may know someone in your area.
I haven’t sold any gold since I bought my house 12 years ago, the general ideas are the same. In general, don’t go to one of those “Buy/Sell gold here” places in strip malls, they will low ball you becasue their business model is to buy quickly from people who don’t know the value of what they have. Or they buy things from questionable sources and will only offer 1/3 of what the value is. Avoid pawn shops for the same reason.
Try reputable, established jewerly stores and get quotes from several before you sell. Coin dealers may also be good, depends on what you are selling. Gold coins good, jewelery maybe not so good. Almost no one is going to offer more than the value of the gold content, they will hand back diamonds and rubies to you as they have practily no resale value once they are removed from the setting.
After many long searchs and selling to people I should not have sold to I came across a place that advertised paying 95% of the spot price of gold. I would have been better taking all of my stuff there.
Avoid pawn shops, everything they do involves them making a good profit. That means the seller gets less. Where I live there is a small chain of jewelry and coins shops that advertises that they pay more for gold and coins. My wife and I sold some stuff to them about 10 years ago, we were paid the spot gold price for that day. We would have been lucky to get half that at a pawn shop.
I recently sold two 14K rings that had been sitting in a drawer unworn for years. The strip mall buy gold place offered me $40 per “pennyweight” (= 1.55517 g), and I took it. If I were going to sell actual coined gold or silver I would definitely go to a coin dealer and insist on spot price; coins always retail at a markup.
Krugerrands have a full ounce of gold (as distinct from some US historic gold coins, that only have 90% of an ounce) and you should be able to get around 95% of spot price for 1 ounce at a reputable coin dealer. I have also taken gold jewelry (no precious stones) with the coins that I sold once, and got a good price for that too.
I’ve never tried to sell to an online dealer, but the one or two that I looked at seemed to have decent prices. One that I remember was 98% of spot (you have to pay the cost of mailing, however, and I’m not sure how that works in terms of safety – they send instructions). It takes longer than going in person, but maybe as good or better if you are not in a hurry.
I’ve sold melt silver a few times to a coin shop which ended up buying for close to market.
Second time I had a silver dollar and the receptionist/helper girl offered me $18. I asked for $20 and the owner said yeah give him $20.
This was helpful, thanks for the replies. I found a reputable coin dealer in my area, and I’m going to give them a call.
You have exactly what they like to trade (as opposed to jewelry or weird, ad hoc token “coins” etc), coin dealers IME give the best deal.
Years ago my Dad bought some junk silver as an investment. After he and Mom both passed, I took it to a coin dealer near me, and got very close to spot price. You are making a wise choice.
We sold some old jewelry/coins a few years back (<10) at a couple of the “We buy gold” shops. They were very professional and transparent, weighing the objects, calculating the gold content, and offering a specified, readily comparable price. The prices were easily comparable and reflected the market rate.
Conventional wisdom is that Krugerrands, UK Sovs, CA and US golds carry a premium over spot. Whether OP should take the quicker cash based on spot now or hold out for, say, 15% more later is up for debate.
Just another repetition, but in 2012 we were selling various gold and silver things after my mom died. My son took the list and some samples to everyplace in Stockton that bought gold/silver and the coin shop looked up the spot prices and had the best total.
They even had a tool that broke the teeth off of a three-space gold crown so that the gold could be weighed.
Worst place to sell dental gold is the “Here’s an envelope, send us your dental gold” guys. The worst place for the rest of it was the pawn shop.