Expert: Judy Carrier
Bio: Judy Carrier is a representative for Jewel by Park Lane and has been in the jewelry business for over three decades.
Filmmaker: Christopher RokoszYou can almost say it's another gold rush! What with gold trading at near record high prices, people are digging for gold in their homes looking to cash in on their unwanted gold jewelry and coins.
But don't rush just yet - there are some things you should know about selling gold for cash so that you don't get ripped off by unscrupulous buyers.
Selling Gold Jewelry - Do I Scrap it?
Most of us have all sorts of jewelry lying around - old gold jewelry, new gold jewelry and gold jewelry that's, well, to be quite frank about it, junk gold jewelry. It could be a class ring you wore the summer you graduated high school and never again; a bracelet you got as a gift on your 13th birthday that is too sweet and girlie for your grown-up tastes; a gold chain your college beau bought you once upon a time and which has since - like your relationship - broken apart; a gold watch of grandpa's that stopped working long ago and no one in your family wanted to wear anyway; and all those assorted gold earrings that have been sad singletons since their mates went missing.
This type of gold jewelry is only worth its weight in gold and so it is perfect for the scrap heap. The only thing that matters when you sell gold jewelry for scrap is the quality and the quantity of gold in the item. All the gold buyer wants from your miscellaneous jewelry is to melt it down and recover its precious metal.
And when selling gold, it is not only jewelry you should consider. Have any gold dental crowns or dental bridgework? Any bits of gold you got from panning? A plain wedding band that from your hated ex spouse? These can all get scrapped too - turning junk taking up space into cash in your pocket.
Selling Gold Jewelry - The Basics
What a buyer is willing to pay you for your gold jewelry is determined by the following factors:
*the karat of the metal
*the weight of the piece
*the price of gold the day you are selling
*the refining or assaying fee
*the buyer's profit margin
The price of gold, which this week was up to $1,150 an ounce, refers to the price being offered on pure 24 karat gold.
Other karats of gold will bring in less because because the percentage of gold is lower, and that is all the buyer is after. For your reference, 22 karat is 91.7% gold, 18 karat is 75% gold, 14 karat is 58.3% gold and 10 karat is 41.7% gold.
Multiply these by the weight of the piece and you have a base figure. Then come the deductions.
A small bit of gold is always lost in the process of melting down, not to mention the cost involved to do it, so these are taken off the value of your pieces.
The last deduction is the profit the buyer wants to make on the deal, and it is this part of the calculation that can lead to wildly varying offers when one buyer is OK with a 15% profit margin and another wants nothing less than 40%.
When it is all said and done, your various bits of gold jewelry probably won't add up to that much relative to what the items cost retail, but hundreds and even thousands of dollars can be made.
Of course, when you think about selling gold jewelry, it doesn't all have to be junk. If you have pieces that are beautiful or gem-encrusted but you don't wear anymore, see what a local jeweler would pay you for it and then shop it around. Or sell it online. And with the high price of gold, you can also try making a mint selling gold coinsif you have any. |
