Featured NEWS: Record prices are triggering a gold rush of customers looking to melt old jewelry for cash

Record prices are triggering a gold rush of customers looking to melt old jewelry for cash

 

I frequent a few local coin shops and a monthly coin show and have been seeing people come out of the woodwork in droves to sell their jewelry, silver sets, and coinage. After the last big run up a decade ago I wondered if there was much still stored away but the answer is apparently plenty. I wonder if the cash-for-gold stores will be popping up like they did back then.

 

It's a shame to know that history will get wiped out.

 

This is always bad news for cameos, especially those in materials other than hardstone. Not all cameos set in gold are worth saving, but many beautiful pieces will be evicted from their golden mounts, and many of those will be damaged or destroyed altogether.

This cameo is signed by American cameist John C. King:



Admittedly, the frame has little merit, but when last seen in public, the cameo looked like this:

 

It's a solid statement of what people are thinking of the state of politics and the economy. In times of turmoil, those who can, always turn to gold.

 

I want to see the look on peoples faces , who think that all those precious stones in their jewelry will count for something !!!

No.! Not the 2 carat diamond.... or the 5 carat Burmese Sapphire ..... but all the small cabochons , or baguettes , ...all those 5 point and ten point stones that make a nice piece of jewelry sparkle !!!

One gold dealer up here offers to pull the stones out of your jewelry for free......and hand them back to you !!!

Those items get melted , fer sure !

 

When silver went thru the roof in late 79 & early 1980...I watched line ups around the block with folks bringing all manner of family silver items to melt.

 

They are running so many advertisements for "Physical Gold" purchases, showing all these older people running the coins through their fingers and showing them to their grandchildren. The ads are close to nauseating to me, with all the American flag and Western references. They remind me of Sméagol in the Lord of the rings, handling his "precious".

I remember when gold dropped to $10/gram. My mom had just passed and she had no really great jewelry, always being conservative with money so I decided to buy something for posterity and purchased a 42 gram 14K honkin' bracelet for $420. I bought it to keep but so far, have no one to give it to other than my niece. Was hoping for a DIL, LOL.

 

We have 2 stores near me that buy gold.
One looks like it is not on the up and up.

 

My family waited until we were adults to pass such things down to us, so they didn't get sold for frivolous stuff.

 

The run to sell gold fascinates me. The reason for the spike is the unstable market, and bond sell off which may trigger loss of faith in the dollar. So ultra rich folk are buying precious metal to hedge. Meanwhile, us middle folk in the US are running to sell it, either not knowing, or gambling that everything will be fine and no hyper inflation will happen.

I hope everything will settle and it'll be a non-issue (especially with comments from yesterday about the Chinese tariffs going down). But if not, yet again riches move up and not down in the classes.

 

That's a good plan. When my mom passed, we discovered that someone at the nursing home had stolen her wedding rings. Some years later, I was going through a box of old jewelry and found her other duplicate wedding rings (exactly like the one that was stolen). Many years before, her wedding ring had gone down one of the heating ducts in the house. They had furnace people in to try to find it but it had just disappeared down the vent. So her insurance covered it and she bought a new identical set. Then years after that, they added whole house air conditioning and one of the workers found the ring in the basement at the bottom of one of the ducts. It must have shaken itself through over the years. I love that story. Still have the rings and I gave my sister our grandmother's set.

 

WOW!!

 

We have a local guy that always shows up at the end of our yard sales and is always looking for gold, coins, and jewelry. He always gives us a sleazy feeling, but I always wonder how many ppl do in fact pull stuff out to sell him.

 

I used to regularly go to garage sales with a friend who was looking for jewelry. Even if the house didn't have jewelry in their sale, she would always ask if they had any to sell. I was surprised at how many people went inside and came out with rings, necklaces etc.

 

Power of suggestion. They're in a selling mood and people love to fulfill a request.

 

I personally don't need people knowing what items of value are in my home, but that's just me

 

That's why you post it on the internet.