Pawn vs. Sell--Which is likely to yield more?

Gotta be selling. Pawning gets you next to nothing for your goods. Craigslist maybe?

Cycloptichorn

agree - sell.

When we were contemplating having a custom piece made, we were told by the jeweler that we could recover gold from other pieces at nearly market price.

I'm leery of those "cash for gold" advertisements, though. Call a reputable jeweler and ask 'em what your options are.

pawn brokers are not as nice as you and me, B.

A referral from an independent jeweler or two might yield a reputable buyer.

be careful.

there's lots of assholes out there...

I went to a very reputable dealer a few years back. I was offered practically nothing. That's why I wondered whether pawning might be another option. Looks like it isn't.

My connections in the NY jewelry exchange are long gone. Don't know where to begin.

I agree with the others but I wouldn't sell to a jeweller. Your jewellery is like a car - depreciates instantly when you walk out with it. When I had my wedding rings made (30 yrs ago), I had them done at a wholesale place and got a great discount. They gave me an appraisal for them. When I had them cleaned one time, I asked the jeweller what they were worth - it was about 60% of the appraisal from the makers, and barely covered the cost to make them.

Sell it on Craig's List or privately. Or here. Maybe I'll buy some of it I'm starting to like jewellery.

Thanks, Mame. I just checked out Craigslist jewelry. I'd have to provide a picture. No camera and no way to scan photos into the computer.

Can't sell stuff here. Against the rules.

Sighing.

Most gold marketers give you half the market value for the weight of gold. And if you go up to them with a stone set that isnt a ruby, sapphire, diamond , or emerald, They will take a big pliers and crush the stones off the finding and the weigh the gold and do a Sp Gravity to etermine carat weight. remember 24 carat is 100% gold, 18 carat is 75% and 14 karat is 48% by weight of gold. You can figure out the carat weight yourself by making a graph of these three points. So, lets say you have an 18 carat ring and it weighs 1 oz, and gold is at 1000$ an ounce.
18 k = 0.75% Au.
You will get 375 $ for that rings gold from a gold marketer.

Its not a great deal working with these guys. I had several old class rings that were all busted up and I took em in to get em appraised fopr sale by a gold marketer. After all the calculations and deductions, I took em to getmelted down and had gold "nugget" chains made for my wife and daughter. They were cool and looked just like the drawings I made for the jeweler who was good at making free form gold chochkies.

I think that, if you can do better than the 50% market max , youre doing pretty ok.

Listening..

Not that I've good jewelry to sell, but that I need to get geared up re other stuff for ebay/craigs/amazon. I've mumbled about this for quite a while, but now I can drive to the USPS, etc.

Fool talking here, but I'd look around on ebay. I think, may be making this up, you can have a minimum stated that you'll accept. But - I'd do a bunch of ebay history looking before I'd state that number.

Trick with ebay is you have to have paypal, I think, to sign up - or maybe that's only for buying. I've been signed up for a while, just inactive. Smarter sorts can tell you more.

farmerman, It sounds like a gold dealer would be better than a jeweler if I'm looking to sell gold.

I will investigate. Thanks.

osso, I have a paypal account. But the same limitations that exist for craigslist would apply to eBay. No camera; no scanning.

You need to get a friend or family member with a camera. If I was there, I'd do it for you.

See Phoenix, using the indicative is as natural to language as breathing is to a body.

How about an estate jewelry seller?

I'd be careful with craigslist, as those people would come to your house or
you'd have to meet them somewhere and you never know who they are - so
your safety would be jeopardized.

ebay would be a good option. Ask Thomas to help you take pictures of
the pieces and then you advertise them (with a minimum $$ amount) at
ebay and see if you could sell them to the highest bidder. There you'd only
have to ship it and have them pay through paypal which is secured.

It depends.

Not that I'm not listening to farmerman, re gold.

Actually, contrary to popular belief, both are correct (were and was). I looked it up long ago.

Try and get some comparisons on Ebay. I recently sold a gold charm bracelet there and got much more than what a respected jeweler offered me. If the prices look resonable, you can probably find a local Ebay service that photographs and sells the items for you. They will take a percentage of the sale but it might be worth it. You can set a reserve price to minimize your risk. The other option is to ask a jeweler to sell them on commission. It's a slower way to go, but you might get the artistic value of the jewelry as well as the materials value.

I knew that Mame, and I was pretty sure that someone who's as knowledgeable about language as you also knew that.

But Phoenix keeps complaining about her natural self using the indicative while her prescriptive self keeps chastising her other self for this abhorrent defilement of language.

popular belief ain't all it's cracked up to be, is it?