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With gold
prices at all-time highs, you might be tempted to sell
your jewelry or coins to help make ends meet. But make
sure you're getting a fair price.
Taking
the easy route — stuffing your gold into a
postage-paid envelope and mailing it to a heavily
advertised buyer, for example — might mean you leave
hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the table.
Here's
how to sell your gold:
—Know
what you have. "They key for a consumer is to know
what they're trying to liquidate," said
Jerry Ehrenwald
, president of the
International Gemological Institute
. Obtain an independent appraisal of its liquidation
price, not its retail price like you would get for
insurance purposes. Ehrenwald recommends appraisers
affiliated with the
American Society of Appraisers
. Find one at http://old.appraisers.org/findappraiser/.
The appraisal should carry a flat fee, not a percentage
of the appraised price.
—Know
your purity. Prices you hear and see in the media are
for pure gold, which is 24 karats. If your jewelry is
less than 24 karats, you will receive proportionately
less when you sell. The number of karats is usually
stamped into the gold. If you know the gold weight or
can measure it on a kitchen scale, you can use an online
calculator to determine its value at igionline.com/igi-calculator.asp.
—Don't
always settle for melt price. Your item might be worth
more than the price of gold widely reported as the
"spot" price or "melt" price. Those
refer to the value of the gold if it was melted down and
reused. Coins and jewelry, especially containing
gemstones or made by a well-known designer such as
Tiffany, might have value far beyond that.
—Get
multiple quotes: Call or visit two or three buyers to
ensure you're not settling for a low-ball price. Compare
on the same day, because gold prices fluctuate daily.
Beware of high-pressure dealers. You might try a public
auction, consignment at a reputable jewelry store or
eBay
, Ehrenwald said. If you'll use a newspaper ad or
Craigslist
, don't give out your home address to protect yourself.
Pawnshops can also be good outlets, he said.
—Check
out your buyer. "If you don't know gold, know your
dealer," said
Paul Montgomery
, a professional coin expert in
Katy, Texas
. See whether the dealer belongs to an industry
association, such as the
Professional Numismatists Guild
, which holds coin dealers to a code of ethics, said
Montgomery, president of that group. Or find a buyer on
the group's Web site, http://pngdealers.com/.
Also check with the
Better Business Bureau
(http://www.bbb.org/)
in the state where the dealer is based.
—Forget
retail prices. The retail price of a piece of jewelry is
irrelevant to melt prices. A
$175
gold chain and pendant with a meltdown value of
$70
fetched
$7.60 to $50
when Consumer Reports shopped it to gold buyers for a
story in its
November magazine
issue. The gold content is all that matters, unless it's
an antique or otherwise special.
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