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It could be the right time to recycle your gold jewelry.
The price of gold tends to rise when the economy is doing poorly. Over the last two years, gold prices have risen about 70
percent. Though the price has dipped since reaching record highs, gold still shines.
And it is infinitely recyclable. "We are one of the greenest industries around," says Cecilia Gardner, president
and CEO of the Jewelers Vigilance Committee, a nonprofit effort to ensure industry ethics.
"Gold has been recycled since ancient times. Once gold comes out of the ground, it never goes back in. It's used
over and over again."
The kind of gold you can sell ranges from inexpensive gold trinkets to dental gold to solid gold coins and fine jewelry.
| Here's what you need to know to get the most money from what you have to sell. |
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| Getting down to gold tacks |
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Selling jewelry
A jeweler, pawn broker, gold refiner or scrap gold dealer will buy the stuff in the back of your jewelry box at a price based on the weight
of its gold content, minus a handling fee. He melts down the jewelry, extracts the gold and sometimes some of the hardening agents and resells
it or uses it himself.
You can pocket the cash -- or if you prefer, many jewelers will trade the old jewelry in for something you like better.
The gold content of jewelry is indicated in karats. Solid gold jewelry is 24 karats. Lesser jewelry has less gold content
and more of other metals and hardening agents. Gold buyers will only pay for gold. With few exceptions, other metals have no resale value.
Generally, the gold content of any piece of jewelry
will be marked on it somewhere -- on the inside of a ring or bracelet
and on the clip of a necklace or the back of an earring. For instance,
a 14-karat piece of jewelry may actually have "14 karat"
inscribed on it in tiny lettering or the lettering may say "14/24"
or "14K."
The less gold content in a piece of jewelry, the less money it will be worth to anyone who intends to melt it down. When you
buy jewelry in the store, you are paying for the design and craftsmanship, as well as any precious and semi-precious stones that may be a part
of the piece. A beautifully designed piece of jewelry may have more resale value as used or "estate" jewelry than it will have as recycled gold.
If you think that might be the case, get the piece appraised.
Michael Gusky, owner of Goldfellow.com,
points to the heavy gold chains and bracelets that were popular
among men in the 1970s as perfect candidates for meltdown. They
have no resale value as jewelry because they are so far out of fashion,
but the best of them had substantial gold content. Gusky says he
recently paid $1,575 for a gold bracelet a customer bought 30 years
ago for $1,000 during a visit to the Caribbean. The customer was
"absolutely stunned," Gusky says.
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