Selling your gold jewelry for cash may be a temptation, especially when times are tough. Eager buyers are advertising cash for gold everywhere you look – in TV ads, online, on store fronts, and by the side of the road. Before you hand over your jewelry to the nearest out-stretched hand, though, do a little research and preparation to make sure you’re getting the best price.
If you’re selling old jewelry, take the pieces to a reputable jeweler like Gold Miner Pawn Shop to find out how much they’re actually worth. A jeweler can weigh the gold content, and he or she can also advise you if your jewelry has more value intact than melted down for scrap.
If you decide to sell your jewelry for its gold material, make sure you know the karats of your gold. An unscrupulous dealer might argue that your gold is less pure than it actually is.
You’ll also want to make sure you understand how your gold is weighed. Jewelers use a measurement for gold known as a Troy ounce, which is equal to 31.1 grams (compared with a regular U.S. ounce at 28 grams). Some dealers use grams to calculate a Troy ounce, but others use another measurement called a pennyweight, which is equal to 1.555 grams. Make sure that your dealer doesn’t weigh by the pennyweight but pay by the gram.
Finally, choose your buyer carefully. Refiners, who buy scrap metal, can give you the best price; however, they generally just buy in bulk, so a refiner is not an option if you only have a few pieces to sell. Mail-in buyers are the worst option as they typically only pay between 11% and 29% of market value for gold. Hotel gold buyers, who come into town and set up shop temporarily, rarely pay well, and like the mail-in buyers, they are not all honest dealers.
The best choice for selling your jewelry is a local pawn shop with an established reputation, like Gold Miner Pawn Shop. Check out the shop’s reputation with the Better Business Bureau and online reviews, and make sure to get bids from more than one dealer. For more information about gold and gold jewelry, visit Website. You can also follow them on Twitter for more updates.
