May 6, 2009 7:45 am US/Eastern
Gold For Cash: How To Score On Hidden Treasures
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
The economic crisis has millions of Americans searching for ways to come up with extra cash to cover everything from a tank of gas to the mortgage.
Many are now realizing they are sitting on a small fortune in the form of old class rings, gifts from grandma or that necklace you just had to have 10 years ago that is now completely out of style.
If they are made of gold these trinkets are worth their weight, literally. But if you don't know what you are doing, you could be throwing away hundreds of dollars.
FIND HIDDEN TREASURES
Gold parties have surfaced as the easiest way to trade your old gold into cold hard cash.
"Wow! It beats working an extra shift," said one woman who got $172 for a few pieces at a recent gold party. With the price of gold hovering around $900 an ounce, it's a great time to cash in, but getting the best price for your stash takes work.
Gold Expert Arthur DeMello says buyers are under no obligation to pay you any particular price.
"If I'm the buyer and I'm working for myself, I'm going to give you the least amount of money I could to make the transaction," he said.
Buyers have to factor in refining charges and of course, their own profit. "There's much room for negotiation," DeMello said.
We put together a collection of 4 rings, 4 bracelets, two chains and a pair of earrings and had DeMello evaluate it. He checked for karat weight and then put it on the scale.
"You've got 61.3 pennyweights," he said.
Two of the rings and one bracelet had gemstones in them, but DeMello said don't expect anything extra for those. Buyers are looking at the gold and only the gold. DeMello told us we could get anywhere from $600 to $1,200 dollars for our collection.
DIFFERENT SHOPS = DIFFERENT RESULTS
We sent a producer to a half dozen jewelry stores and pawn shops around Boston to see what she could get. She found there was no standard procedure for evaluating the pieces. Some stores used an acid test to determine the karat of some of the gold. Results of that test varied from shop to shop. The karat number determines the percentage of pure gold, and that directly affects its value.
Our producer hit three shops in a one-block area near downtown crossing and got three very different results.
The first store offered us $894. Just a few doors down, the price jumped to $1,045. At the last stop, the woman behind the counter initially offered our producer $950.
But she was able to negotiate and got them to raise the offer to $1,250. In two other cases our producer was able to talk the buyer into significantly increasing the offer.
Out of the six stores, our lowest offer was our first at $802.80. Our highest offer was $1,250. If we had sold the gold to the first shop we would have missed out on $447.20.
LESSON LEARNED: NEGOTIATE & SHOP AROUND
"If you shop for your best price, you have all the power," DeMello said.
Gold closed at nearly $904 an ounce Tuesday. But keep in mind that the price of gold changes by the minute, so the offer you get depends on that price. DeMello doesn't recommend those mail-in services.
He said some of them may be fine, but there's really no way to know.
He said you can beat a face-to-face discussion. And remember, it's your gold, don't sell it if you don't think you are getting a fair price.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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