More locals turn gold, silver jewelry into cash

On Tuesday, after counting the silver dimes and other coins, he offered the owner $1,065 for the small collection.
“I’ll take it,” said the woman, who didn’t want her name used.
Bowman carefully counted out her cash. She folded the money and put it into her pocket.
“I didn’t know what it was worth,” she said. “This was a nice surprise.”
His markup on this particular deal will be about 15 percent, depending on silver prices, Bowman said.
Bowman cautioned consumers against selling gold or silver to just anyone. Traveling gold buying shows or gold parties don’t always offer the best price, he said.
“There’s a lot of people out there ripping people off,” he said. Shop around. Get two or three estimates before selling, he said.
As required by law, Bowman keeps his jewelry purchases for 30 days in neatly organized plastic bags inside a safe. A peek inside one bag revealed a tangle of gold chains, half of a religious medallion, a thin gold ring, a chunky bracelet, one gold earring and a pendant made out of a 2-peso gold coin. The gold will be sold to a refinery to be melted down, he said.
Candice Dudley of Napa also stopped by Bowman’s shop on Tuesday. She was hoping to get an estimate on what she thought was a silver necklace.
“It’s silver,” Bowman said, looking at the piece. He could pay her about $17, “but you’ll probably get a better price for it on eBay,” he said.
She thanked him for his candor.
“I do that all the time,” he said. “I’m very transparent.”
Dudley said she recently sold a few gold pieces to Bowman for $130. “I was on my lunch break,” she said. “It was the easiest thing.” Returning home, “I told my husband about it and he told me to look for more stuff” to sell, she said with a laugh.
Jerovi Sanson, owner of Villa Iris on Third Street, said he’s not seeing a big increase in people trying to sell gold.
“Most people sold their gold two or three years ago” during the height of the recession, he said.
However, changing fashions are also impacting gold sales, Sanson said. “Most people under 50 year old are not wearing yellow gold. They only want white gold or platinum.” As a result, he buys a lot of older gold items, including wedding bands from failed marriages.
Sanson said he is surprised at the rise in gold prices. Gold has been hovering at about $1,800 a troy ounce for 24K gold. “I never thought it’d be up this high,” he said.
“You don’t know where it’s going.”

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Posted by VBN on Oct 2 2011. Filed under Gold. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry