On Friday, I was invited to attend a "gold party". For those of you who don't know, it's when you invite friends and their unwanted jewelry into your home with a buyer and sell what you've got for some quick cash. It's quick, simple, and a sure way to not get even close to what you deserve for your stuff (though if you're the host, you'll get a 10% cut of the sales at the end). I had two incentives to attend: One was that, over the years, I've found small bits of broken 14k jewelry cleaning up at work and have mindlessly collected them over the years. My simpleton brain won't allow me to throw them away because gold, even when it's relatively cheap, is still gram-for-gram pretty damn valuable. I didn't really care what I got for it as it was all effectively worthless to me since I could (nor would) not wear it. Hello opportunity. And two, because there was the possibility I was told that some people would bring in silver coins and my friend who invited me assured me that I would get first dibs on any of it so I collected some common date junk silver for barter to bring with me as well. Unfortunately, no one brought anything so that aspect was for naught. I could've sold them then and there but considering the poor value I got for the gold in relation to its spot price, there's no way I would part with them there.
I brought with me two Mexican gold dos pesos coins that I got free with the purchase of a bag of foreign coins years ago when I clearly had too much money to spend. I've held them all this time. I decided to use them as a sacrifice since they're a known quantity to me. I knew precisely their fineness (21.6k i.e. 90% pure) and weight so based on what I would get for them would determine how I would go about the rest of the evening. At the time, the spot value of gold put the full value of the two coins at about $136. I got $70 for the pair...slightly more than 50%. Basic research said I should've expected between 65-75% of the spot price. I accepted the price both because I still effectively profited on the pieces whose value was about $28 when I purchased them (yes gold has risen a bit since then!) and because the shitty gold jewelry I had also brought made up for the shortfall.
Overall, the clumsiness of my customers netted me $135. Not bad as far as I'm concerned, plus I'm rid of those awful things and got pretty close to my extremely conservative estimate of their value. I was a bit annoyed at the woman's ignorance of the coins I had brought. She even mentioned to me that she wasn't sure if her company allowed her to buy foreign currency never mind the fact the coin was a restrike dated 1945 and rendered worthless in terms of purchasing power by multiple revaluations since the early 20th century when these coins were actually made for circulation. But they were gold. She accepted a miniature gold Jesus medallion without question so why would this be a problem when they're just gonna be refined anyway? Gold is gold regardless of its form. It has the same weight and fineness as an American gold dollar (1849-1889). You'd think she'd have either recall knowledge of this stuff or at least a reference book to consult. She tested it with aqua regia but could only determine that it was better than 18k but less than 22k. Very good. 90% of 24k is 21.6. She was "kind" enough to round up the pennyweight of the two coins to make up the difference. For this alone, I could not recommend using this company - American Gold and Diamond Buyers - and instead go to an established coin dealer as you'll likely receive closer to its spot value. In fact basic research suggests you can expect up to 75% spot for jewelry and higher for coins which have known quantities of gold as well as numismatic value assisting in their resale. And if you're just looking to trade up, you may get an even better deal still.
I felt bad for my friend though who invited me. He had found two Canadian gold Maple Leafs (I'm not going into detail but it was a legitimate find, not a "find") and showed them to me. He wasn't sure if they were real or not. They seemed real until I weighed them. The two coins combined were just barely over an ounce when they should've weighed two ounces. A simple scratch test showed they were just electroplated pieces of junk. Sucks for him. He could've gotten close to $2500 for them. If they were real, I would not have let him sell them there and get only 60% for them.
Surprisingly I got a phone number from a woman at the party. I'll have to see where that goes, if anywhere...
ADDENDUM: As of now, I have called this woman twice and she has not called me back. If she actually does call me back, I will give her a chance but otherwise, lacking an emotional investment in her, I see no reason to keep trying.
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