Monday, June 22, 2009

Basic Guide to Selling Gold

By Patrick Richman

As the economic crises rages on, people are looking for more and more ways to make some extra money. One way, as seen on TV and in the windows of your local jewelers, is to sell your unwanted gold.

Like any money-making endeavor, there are risks involved. With all the options out there, what is the best and most profitable way to sell your gold items? Is an online gold buyer the way to go, or is it better to go to a local pawnshop? Obviously there are pros and cons to both. Ultimately it depends on what is most important to you.

For instance, if it is important to you to shop around for the best offer, an online buyer might not be the way to go. You can only send your goods to one company at a time, and the process of sending your gold to one, waiting on an offer, rejecting that offer and waiting on your gold to come back so you can send it to another buyer would be extremely time-consuming. However, it could be very time consuming and frustrating to drive around to area pawnshops to get offers for your gold and precious metals.

Most online buyers will offer a price based on the current gold (or other precious metal) price. Sometimes that price is below of the current gold value, but other times it is not. Your local pawnshop might offer full value for your jewelry, or they might not. If you live in an area that does not have a lot of pawnshops, it might be easier for you to send your gold to an online buyer. Since each buyer can set their own price for what they will pay, there is no guarantee that an in-person buyer will pay more than an online buyer, or vice-versa. There are many people who stick with the online service, because it is infinitely more convenient.

If you have one or two pieces to sell, you might be better off sticking with a local pawnshop. Online buyers buy precious metals based on the weight of the precious metal in question, so if you've got a simple chain or something similar in size you might not have enough gold to register on their scale.

If you have a whole mess of gold or precious metal pieces, your best option might be to sell to an online buyer. That way you don't have to sort through the mess yourself. You save time, and that is a very valuable indeed.

If environmental issues are a concern, you might want to consider an online buyer who is committed to an environmentally-friendly process. Selling to a jeweler who buys new gold pieces means selling to a business who profits from gold (and other precious metal) mining. Once gold is mined it can be recycled over and over, which is better for the environment that digging out new gold. Working with an online buyer who resells gold and precious metals to the jewelry industry means that you are contributing to a process that, in theory, reduces the need for environmentally-unfriendly mining activity.

Whichever option you choose, it is important that you find a buyer who has an industry reputation for integrity, and that you feel comfortable with the process. And, with the price of gold rising, now is the time to decide.

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