china
New Contributor
I buy and sell gold and silver scrap and jewelry. The "Cash4Gold" model is pretty much standard in the business. They are not buying: 1) jewelry; 2) gemstones; 3) namebrands. They are paying the wholesale price for scrap gold and that is very disappointing to a lot of people. It's not really a scam. They have to make money doing it or it isn't a very good business model. (Maybe some of their business practices are unethical, but paying less than "retail jewelry price" is something they have to do to stay in business.)
Since I buy jewelry to keep it as jewelry (meaning it isn't all scrap) I can pay a higher price for it than a lot of people will.
NEVER put UNIQUE antique pieces in the scrap pile! Most of the time, they are worth more as jewelry, particularly if they can be repaired.
Now the problems with buying scrap...
Many pieces marked 14K or 18K or whatever aren't gold at all. They are gold plated brass or pot metal.
Many are under-karat, meaning they are 10K marked 14K or 9K marked 12K.
The way I test gold, I use acid and I basically ruin the piece if it isn't gold because I put the acid directly on the piece. (Other testing methods are not as exact, I've found.) There are other ways to test but I usually process a lot of pieces at one time and I'm only concerned with "Gold or Not Gold."
The biggest problem that you have to contend with as a small dealer is that the big refineries only want big amounts of gold -- measured in troy pounds. You will end up selling to a smaller refiner or a smaller dealer. The more people in the food chain, the less you will get because everybody needs (and deserves) to make a profit buying and selling.
(Side note: Jewelry manufacturers or jewelry designers typically buy gold in processed forms like 14K gold wire, 14K gold sheets, etc. They have no real use for scrap that isn't processed except to throw it in with their scrap to resell when they get done making whatever they are making.)
Anyway, everything I wrote above applies to silver except that you need to have many pounds of silver to deal with a decent size refinery. And usually they will tell you that you brought in less pounds than you brought in but that is just part of the game.
Since I buy jewelry to keep it as jewelry (meaning it isn't all scrap) I can pay a higher price for it than a lot of people will.
NEVER put UNIQUE antique pieces in the scrap pile! Most of the time, they are worth more as jewelry, particularly if they can be repaired.
Now the problems with buying scrap...
Many pieces marked 14K or 18K or whatever aren't gold at all. They are gold plated brass or pot metal.
Many are under-karat, meaning they are 10K marked 14K or 9K marked 12K.
The way I test gold, I use acid and I basically ruin the piece if it isn't gold because I put the acid directly on the piece. (Other testing methods are not as exact, I've found.) There are other ways to test but I usually process a lot of pieces at one time and I'm only concerned with "Gold or Not Gold."
The biggest problem that you have to contend with as a small dealer is that the big refineries only want big amounts of gold -- measured in troy pounds. You will end up selling to a smaller refiner or a smaller dealer. The more people in the food chain, the less you will get because everybody needs (and deserves) to make a profit buying and selling.
(Side note: Jewelry manufacturers or jewelry designers typically buy gold in processed forms like 14K gold wire, 14K gold sheets, etc. They have no real use for scrap that isn't processed except to throw it in with their scrap to resell when they get done making whatever they are making.)
Anyway, everything I wrote above applies to silver except that you need to have many pounds of silver to deal with a decent size refinery. And usually they will tell you that you brought in less pounds than you brought in but that is just part of the game.
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