Selling gold?

[leebee]

Is anyone still selling their old gold jewelry? About 10 years ago, there was a very active group, selling their old gold to raise money for trips, bills, etc. There was a place that everyone recommended. I know that gold isn't worth now what it was worth then, but I have a bunch of old, broken items, single earrings, etc., that I'm considering selling. Is selling gold still profitable, and where would you recommend I try selling mine?

 

[any name you wish]

If you have a scale that measures in grams and know the approximate purity, you can probably get a pallpark figure. Call a few pawn shops in your area to see what their scrap rate is per gram.

 

[LexiC123]

One of the places that was popular on that thread was US Gold Buyers. You could send in your gold in an insured, postage paid FedEx envelope, and they would call you with a price. If you were not happy with their offer, they would send your items back to you.

I used them twice. The first time I went to their offices on 47th Street in NYC, when the price of gold was around $900/oz, and I received $3,100. The second time I mailed a smaller amount of gold in to them - in 2011, when gold was around $1,500/oz - and received in the neighborhood of $1,100. Both of these payouts were significantly higher than what my local jewelers were offering.

The items I sold were thing without sentimental value, i.e. broken chains and earring, gifts from old boyfriends...things that just sat around collecting dust. I don't regret selling the gold at all...we used the money for wonderful trips to Disney!

 

[wilkeliza]

I would know exactly what you are dealing with before sending it off anywhere. My ex-sister-in-law tried selling her gold one time to get her and my brother out of debt but sold things that came from family and were full of lies. So she thought she was going to get paid out quite a bit like the PP when really all she had was a bunch of gold plated crap that didn't even make a half ounce of gold. I think she got a whopping 30 bucks when she was expecting thousands. She claimed the place they sent the stuff to ripped her off and swapped out her real gold family heirlooms for costume jewelry. Knowing her family and the area we all lived in I still think to this day it was actually costume jewelry that her great aunts told people was real to make them seem better.

 

[tvguy]

Every jewelry store here buys gold, and they are also store that do nothing but buy gold and silver.

 

[wendow]

As a PP mentioned, US Gold Buyers was a very popular place that was mentioned a lot here on the DIS (there used to be a huge thread). Most seemed very happy with their experience. Right about the time I gathered all my gold to send in, the price of gold began to drop and it dropped quite a bit. It has begun gradually going up again so if you can hold out longer, it might be worth it.

 

[SSRFred]

I used US Gold Buyers back then also, but I went to their office in NYC. I would never have felt comfortable mailing my gold somewhere, plus in person, I watched them test and weigh each piece and I always had the choice whether to take their offer or not. I was pleased with them.