Selling Gold, Silver, and Gemstones

With the current high price of gold I decided to gather up all my stray scraps of gold, as well as some un-used gold chains.  I also gathered my extra silver and loose gemstones.  I packaged them into little baggies and created a numbered spreadsheet of the items.  I had read that you should shop around to find the best offer for your items, so I decided to check with my local family-owned jewelry shop (Gold Tree Jewelers), a pawn shop (Atascadero Jewelry & Loan),  and an estate jewelry shop (Hamilton Estate Jewelry) to see who could give me the most for my gold.

I called ahead of time to see if they could quote me a standard price and I had mixed results.  The jewelry shop asked me to bring in my items to have them check them out.  The pawn shop hemmed and hawed about the price, saying that I should bring in my pieces.  The estate jewelry shop told me $15 a gram for "clean" gold, that meant gold chains with no solder.  While I had them on the phone I asked if I needed an appointment, and all of the shops said I could stop by and they could help me if there were not a lot of people in the shops.  I also asked if there was a fee for the evaluation process.  The jewelry shop and the pawn shop said there was no fee.  The estate jewelry shop indicated that if the evaluation process took a long time there would be a fee.  He explained that people often bring in a bunch of items for evaluation and then they don't sell them.  Basically, it is an assurance that people don't use him for a free appraisal.  I had a feeling that I would be selling to him so I decided to save his evaluation for last.

The local jewelry store had a constant flow of random neighborhood people with purchases or repairs.  I realized that they were doing me a favor and was very patient.  She had calculated the exchange rate at a bit more then $10 per gram, and was frustrated that the estate jewelry shop had quoted me $15.  I told her that I wished that they could pay more for the gold, because I would much rather use them.  She was willing to buy a couple of the chains outright as jewelry and gave me a quote.  She checked if my stray post earrings were diamonds, until the meter broke (they weren't!!)  She also recommended that I check out the antique shop up the street (Mikkelson's Antiques) to see if they would be interested in purchasing my vintage items, some of which were incomplete.  I did go by the shop but the buyer was not there.  I will check back later. 

I checked out the pawn shop next, it was the first time I visited a pawn shop.  I couldn't believe how many items were for sale!!  I know where I would go if I needed to buy some used jewelry.  They also offered me $10 per gram.  The owner was friendly and spent some time showing me some of the jewelry while we chatted and I picked his brain.  It was worth checking out the pawn shop, now I know where it is and what type of items are for sale there.

I finally ended up at the estate jewelry shop.  He ended up giving me $12 a gram because it was not "clean" and there were some 10K pieces in the mix.  I couldn't believe how much I got for the scrap gold, about $150!!  The full 18K gold necklace brought me $100, and the extra chains brought about $50.  He told me that it would cost about $25 to evaluate the rest of my stuff, apparently even if the stones are not actual gemstones they might still be set in gold.  He also gave me a $50 quote on a vintage watch if he bought it as gold.  He buys silver, which the other shops don't, and so I will most likely take the items back to his shop for an evaluation and sell the remaining items to him.  He said that the loose gemstones are not saleable, that if there was one in the gold it would "go into the melt".    If I really have some gemstones I will have them removed and will save them anyway, I can't imagine sacrificing them "to the melt"!!  I still need to check out the coin guy in town to see how much I could get for my silver coins, I have heard that they are worth more as silver because they are 90% silver.

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