How to Sell Gold Jewelry and Not Get Sucked Dry by the Parasites Looking For Old Gold Sellers
How much one can earn from selling gold jewelry is directly related to the buyer one finds. It can be confusing. A quick online search reveals contradictory information. One source will warn you that you should never go with an online buyer because you need to be able to "look your buyer in the eye" and know you're getting a fair deal. Another claims that online sources are the best because they cut out the middle man, virtual eliminate overhead and increase your profits. How can you be sure to find the best buyer? In a sea of information, it is difficult to know where to look or where to start. Finding a gold buyer is really not the difficult, but there are a few steps you need to take to ensure you're not getting scammed.
The answer is really quite simple. You need to do your homework. For starters, you need to know the price of gold. At the writing of this article, the value of gold was $1138 per ounce. You can find out the price of gold online quite easily. The best resource is actually goldprice.com.
Now, you need to learn something about your buyers. It is easy to do an online search of potential buyers and this, in itself, is not a bad place to start. Shop around. Get some quotes. If you know the weight and the karat of your gold, you can get an estimate as to what your gold is worth. Jewelry is weighed in grams, which is then converted to ounces. The ounces are then divided by the current price of gold. For example, a ring weighing.35 ounces would potentially bring in $399. The purer the gold, (24 carat, as opposed to 10 karat), the more the value of the gold. Ideally, at this step, it would be good to get five or so estimates.
Once you have narrowed down potential buyers, it is time to do research on the companies themselves. Looking through the online testimonials to determine a company's reputation is almost meaningless. The simple fact is you have no way of knowing who wrote them. Even if they were written by real customers, a gold buyer certainly will not post on their website comments made by less than happy customers. The more likely place to visit to see if there have been complaints is the Better Business Bureau. For good measure, I researched one of my favorite companies. I found that, in three years, this company had eight complaints, the majority of which concerned refunds. All eight complaints were resolved. That is a pretty good reputation.
There is no short cut for checking out your seller. You cannot assume that they are representing themselves accurately. The company that claimed it was "all about trust" had a Better Business logo on their website. Interestingly, however, they were not registered with the Better Business Bureau. There are plenty of scams out there for selling gold jewelry. We cannot assume that companies are representing themselves honestly. Ultimately, the more you know, the less likely that you will be taken advantage of. So, do your homework, check out what your piece is worth, and find out what you can about the company with whom you want to do business.
