You have the right to get the maximum amount of money when you sell your gold and jewelry. For some people, Cash4Gold is the best option because they buy jewelry and gold of any type. Broken necklaces, single earrings, dental gold, and the list goes on and on.

What if you have a piece of jewelry that you think is worth more than just the metal that makes it up? You use our scrap gold calculator and think you can get more money from a jewelry store for selling your jewelry.

But before you do, here’s what you need to know so you don’t get surprised!

You Can’t Trust Engraving

Skilled jewelers and special equipment can tell exactly what kind of metal makes up a piece of jewelry. Unfortunately what you think you have may not be what you have.

The engraving on jewelry denotes its karat, or gold purity level. Most countries have no laws requiring that engraving be accurate, and many do not require a 3rd party to verify jewelry’s gold content. It’s possible some jewelry is incorrectly stamped to misrepresent the quality for the seller to earn more money.

Scrap Gold Prices Do Not Reflect Retail Value

It’s easy to assume that when you sell to a gold buyer like Cash4Gold, you will get retail value for your jewelry and gold. Gold buyers only buy the intrinsic value of the metal that makes up the jewelry, not it’s quality or appeal.

Jewelry stores work on incredibly high margins, and can make up prices by 3-20x their actual worth. Even gold and jewelry bought on sale will still be far higher than the value of the metal. The situation is similar to buying a brand new car. As soon as you take it out of the store, the price of the car drops dramatically.

Jewelers Use Appraising as a Marketing Tool

If you take your gold and jewelry to a jeweler for appraisal, there is a good chance that the appraised value is for trade-in only. This means that they will not actually give you cash for it. They expect you to buy another item that is already marked up 3-20 times its actual value.

You need cash now and want to sell gold and silver for good money. Here’s how to do it!

Many of us have jewelry boxes that have been collecting dust for ages. Jewelry can be very expensive to fix. Some pieces of gold and silver jewelry that you find have gone out of style, while other pieces are broken and unusable. In the case of earrings, you may have lost an earring so a single earring is pretty useless to you. Watches die out and aren’t worth fixing.

The process is simple. Scour your home for all of the pieces you want to sell in your jewelry boxes, attic, or wherever. Separate the pieces into junk gold and silver you want to sell for cash quickly, and other pieces you may want to hold onto because it’s a high-quality piece or has sentimental value.

Separate by Type of Gold and Silver

Gold and silver jewelry comes in a wide variety of metals. While the pieces are made up of gold and silver, they can be alloyed with other metals to make them more or less valuable. Look closely at the pieces to identify the quality of the gold or silver.

In the case of gold jewelry, 8K, 10K and 14K is the lower quality and less pure. 14K gold is only 58.33% pure gold. On the other hand, 24K is pure, 100% gold. Click here to read more about gold purity and gold color. In the United States, 14K is the lowest purity of gold that can be considered “jewelry,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell it!

Silver has a similar system for identifying its purity. Sterling silver is less than pure silver, while .999 Silver is as close to pure silver as you’re going to get.

You can also sell platinum pieces of gold because platinum is another precious metal that is actually more valuable than gold.

Weigh Your Gold and Silver

This can be a little difficult if you don’t have a proper scale. Unless you have several pounds of gold and silver, then your typical bathroom scale won’t do the trick. You can spend $40 on a digital scale but it won’t be worth the investment. There are generic metal scales available at your local office supply store that can be used to give you a rough estimate, and they shouldn’t cost more than a few dollars.

Wait for the Right Time

Gold and silver prices change daily, but the prices a jewelry store or refiner will pay may not change as often. No one can predict the stock market, so it can be impossible to tell where the prices are going. In any case, RIGHT NOW is a good time to sell. Gold is hovering around some of the highest rates it has ever been (around $950-$975 per ounce as of mid-July 2008). You can hold onto your gold for a while to see what happens, so it really depends on how badly you need cash.

Shop Your Gold and Silver Around, then Sell for Maximum Cash

You have two options for selling your unwanted gold. One is the jewelry store, and the other is an online refiner.

For high-quality pieces, you should open up the phone book and shop your gold around to a couple of local jewelry stores. Jewelry pieces that are antiques or have quality-craftsmanship can be worth more then the actual metal they are made out of. If your piece is one-of-a-kind, then your best bet is shopping it around to jewelry stores. When a jeweler gives you an estimate, they should weigh the gold and silver out in front of you. If they do not, be weary and move on.

For lower-quality, broken, and junk gold and silver pieces, you can sell your gold to an online refiner. Online refiners work by shipping a package to your home. You fill the package with your scrap gold and silver, and then mail it off to them.

Within days you should receive a check for your bounty. If you are not satisfied with the check, send it back and they will send you back your package of gold and silver. You can get a rough estimate of what online refiners are willing to pay by using this calculator.

But are you selling your gold to a pawn shop or jeweler? If you are, you should consider requesting a gold kit today directly from a gold refiner. Why? Pawn shops are known to give you rock bottom payouts for your items, and jewelers are known to skim a little off the top for the same exact service. Your scrap gold and jewelry will end up in the hands of the refiners anyway, so why pay the middleman?

Rocket Pawn and Jewelry Owner Cynthia Beavers says customers are coming in droves to trade in their old gold for cash. “Just scrap gold chains, necklaces, rings – they’re just cleaning out their jewelry boxes,” she says. News of the price increase of gold is all over town. Pawn shops are seeing people bring in broken jewelry, old wedding rings, and even gifts from ex significant others.

Source: It’s Worth It’s Weight

Gold prices continued to skyrocket Thursday, reaching another all-time high on the falling U.S. dollar, supply concerns and high world-wide demand.

Gold futures have risen more than 42% since August. In early January, they surpassed the previous all-time high of $847 an ounce – a record that dated back 28 years.

Nadler believes that gold is selling with a $200 “anxiety premium,” amid the credit crunch, but he expects to see a price correction as the effects of the rate cuts boost the economy in the latter half of 2008.

“When we reach a return to normalcy, we will see gold trading in the mid-$600 range,” said Nadler.

Source – CNN Money 1/30/2008

The purity of gold is measured using the karat system of measurement. Gold is usually mixed, or alloyed, with other metals, such as copper or nickel. This makes the gold more durable for jewelry use by hardening the gold. Gold in its purest form is 24 Karats, which is the highest purity measurement for gold. Most of the jewelry in the United States is sold in either 18KT, 14KT or 10KT purity. Gold sold in lower Karats means that the gold has been mixed with other metals, such as copper or nickel.
For example, 18KT gold jewelry is about 75% pure, meaning 75% of the piece is pure gold, and the rest is another metal allow. All companies pay based on the karat purity weight of the gold.

What is the difference between sterling silver and pure silver?

Sterling is usually alloyed (mixed) with another metal, such as nickel or zinc to harden the silver, and is typical for everyday use, such as jewelry or flatware. Most sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver, while pure silver is anywhere from 99.5% or 99.9% pure. All companies pay based on the silver purity and weight of the silver item. Many pieces of sterling silver jewelry will contain a ‘925’ marking.

What are platinum and palladium?

Platinum is an extremely rare metal Retailers claim supply estimates of this fine metal, being 30 times rarer than gold, that if all the world’s platinum reservoirs were poured into one Olympic size swimming pool, it would be scarcely deep enough to cover your ankles; whereas gold would fill more than three such pools. Platinum and palladium are part of the platinum precious metals group. They are considered to be precious metals, based on their rarity. Both are considered hard precious metals, so they are usually only alloyed 5-10%. Both metals are also naturally white in appearance. Jewelry made in platinum will be hallmarked with ‘PLAT’ or ‘PLT’ or ‘950′. Palladium jewelry is usually hallmarked ‘PLD’ or ‘PALL’.