Thread: Buying jewelry and gold? Ideas on reselling

Ok so i need some help and brain storming from creative and smart people, like the people here.
So i have set something up where i am buying used gold and jewelry. Long story short it worked. I have alot of people waiting on my services right now. All buyers know they will "get what they will get" so my numbers are low and they work.
My questions are

(1) when buying gold? where to resell it to get top dollar ( i can profit, but how to make as much as possible)
(2) watches, are easy have found many reselling channels

the last and hardest item is Rings, diamonds, etc...
Jewelers do not want to pay anything!

Someone buys a wedding ring for 20k brings it to the jeweler and gets 5k just to get quick cash then the jeweler resells it for 18k the next week.

(3) where do i resell diamonds and rings to get top dollar?top dollar ( not just pawn them)

id appreciate all the brainstorming from everyone, thank you.

Originally Posted by JoeyBiz

Jewelers do not want to pay anything!

Someone buys a wedding ring for 20k brings it to the jeweler and gets 5k just to get quick cash then the jeweler resells it for 18k the next week.

(3) where do i resell diamonds and rings to get top dollar?top dollar ( not just pawn them)

id appreciate all the brainstorming from everyone, thank you.

As a jeweler that is very true. You could try empire gold but not really top dollar. Sell Gold and Scrap Jewelry Online - We Buy Gold Coins and Fine Jewelry - SellGoldHere

The only other ones I can think of are the obvious ebay n craigslist.

try some sort of consignment deal w/ local jewelers. they have the credibility to sell higher end stuff.

Hi,

For any inventory you must make the decision: “Do I want to sell this fast, or sell for the highest dollar?” They are not the same thing, and require different outlets. If you want the highest dollar you need to sell RETAIL. This means you need to build a brand on Ebay and on your own website or find a regular buyer (upline) that can place product.

For wholesale diamonds, since you are in New York, why not go to the Diamond District in NYC? Start at Cohen’s on 47th at 5th and work your way up the street. You will learn what the wholesale market offers there for sure.

For gold, you need to find a local smelter that buys wholesale. To do that you need to save up quite a bit (min 5 ounces), or work through a middle man if you need cash more quickly. For better stuff like pocket watches, fobs, and coins you should find someone you can flip stock.

If you make the right connection and keep your expectations low you can find somebody willing to purchase everything, the good stuff and the dreck. Learn to take decent pictures of material. I will purchase better coins. Know that most internet coin dealers will ask you to send in material and then they make an offer. It's ok, in the biz you live and die by your word and name. One cross and you are blacklisted big time.

Know that stones are in a MAJOR glut right now. Unless it has unusual high clarity or color try to keep diamonds in their original setting and sell the fantasy. Damaged settings should be scrapped. There is a lot of fake stuff out there! Lots of good stuff flooding the market too. I know a guy that went to S. Florida about 3 months after Madoff defaulted. Bought over $15 Million in jewelry in three weeks. Plenty of folks selling the family jewels to make rent.

For large stashes of junk coins, mint product, etc. try Anthony’s in Jersey.

Learn how to weigh and test for purity.

Learn the difference between white metals. DON'T sell 1940s Pt jewelry for spot, that stuff can be quite collectible when placed with the right buyer.

You should also try to separate out the gold by carat. Don’t buy 8k, only buy 10k and above or will have a hard time moving the product upstream.

Here is a decent outfit.
Buy / Sell Scrap Gold, Selling Jewelry, Gold Coins, Diamonds, Platinum Online, Cash for Gold & Silver in NY, NJ - US Gold Buyers

Go to the coinshows to learn the trade! (Road dealers pay about 92% on small amounts of scrap.)

Buy ONLY MARKED pieces; NOTHING marked "Mexico." unless you personally scrape and acid test yourself.

Learn the different German and Mexican gold purities.

LOOK at 14k and 18k to get a feel for its "look".

92-96% is what most wholesalers will pay for junky stuff.

You can get more for assayed lots from a refiner if you send in 10 ounces or more.

You may be close to these guys:

Welcome to General Refining Corporation

Here is the gram factor (Check it for yourself)

.0179 x spot for 96% and
.0173 x spot for 92%

Per Gram of 14K

Keep small foreign gold coins, those have buyers if you shop around.

For larger amounts of silver, bars, rounds, junk coin bags, etc check here:
buy or sell gold bullion, buy silver bars, us gold bullion eagle, gold coins, invest in precious metals, gold bars, gold krugerrand, precious metal, bullion gold at www.golddealer.com

They have pretty decent spreads, better than most IMO.

Also, learn to find a buyer for EVERYTHING so that you don’t every have to turn anyone down. Someone may be selling their class ring one day, but have grandpa’s photo collection the next day. DON’T turn it down, learn how to turn over the deal.

Also, go to every coin store in the state to find a dealer you can relate to. A dealer friend with a storefront is a friend indeed (they already have a well established upline since most brick and mortar coin stores make their rent off the scrap gold trade).

Took me years to learn all this; should get you started.

Good luck…

More...

Selling Scrap Gold to Refiners

There are four major precious metal refiners in the United States. Major means they have the physical infrastructure necessary to convert scrap gold of various purities and alloys into 99% pure gold which is used for international finance and bullion making. These four are:

1) Metalor
2) Johnson Matthey
3) Ohio Precious Metals
4) Republic Metals Corp.

Anyone else is a middleman. Some are honest, some will play games with your assay or weight.

The trick is to sell directly to a Primary refiner for your largest return on the gold content. Only OPM and RMC are buying metals in smaller amounts that most folks can accumulate. Johnson Matthey and Metalor deal in large industrial size lots. You can get more for assayed lots from a refiner if you send in 10 ounces or more.

The refiners can rarely offer to pay more than 98% of the weight. So, be careful when using a middlemen that can promise this amount or higher, they are using tricky math in order to hide their profit. The refiners will often then calculate up to 2% of the weight as burn off.

There are reasons, however, to use middle-men as brokers. For example, the one we recommend in NTR Resources. They have multiple locations across the country (one near us) so one can get paid at a quicker turn-around then shipping across the country directly to the manufacturer.

NTRmetals.com

We also have heard good things regarding Winchester and General Refining.

If you or someone you know is housebound and can ONLY mail out small amounts of scrap, that is the only time we recommend a smaller middleman.


Jewelry

*“Red Gold”, also called Rose Gold, or Pink Gold or Russian Gold are simply terms that denote various alloys with copper. Yellow gold is the most marketable and accepted color, with a copper percentage between 30% and 50%. There are also alloys known as black, gray, blue, purple and green gold. They all have gold and silver with another metal as the coloring alloy; specifically rhodium, ruthenium, aluminum.

*Italian jewelry is often ‘plum’ or ‘plumb’ gold. This means that the jewelry is
ithin the legal alloy limits to be marketed as gold, 10k and above.

White Gold

Typically, white gold marketed in jewelry is plated with Rhodium. However, there are other alloys known as white gold, the usual is a nickel and silver alloy of various purities.

18k white gold is actually very rare, and often counterfeited. Much of the stuff marketed as 18k white gold has a bogus makers mark and is actually surgical steel.

*Buy only marked (stamped, or with makers mark) pieces. AGAIN, do not buy anything marked "Mexico" unless you can personally cut/scrape and do an acid test on the *particular piece.

*Learn the different German and Mexican gold purities. Most ‘German gold’ is just a nickel and silver mixture.

Coin

U.S. gold coins between 1834 and 1873 were 90% gold with between 1% and 5% silver.

After 1873 the US mint began to refine their own gold. They would refine gold and then alloy with 1% silver before striking coins as a hardening agent (pure gold is rather soft).

American Eagle gold coins produced by the US mint are currently 0.916% gold, 0.053% copper and 0.03 silver. *

The Krugerrand has 0.9166 gold and 0.0833 copper, so it appears more ‘red’ than the American Eagle, which in turn appears a little lighter due to the silver content.

DO NOT sell early coins for melt. Have someone knowledgeable look at them first!

Hope that helps...