Scrap Jewelry Reveals Its True Value!
Have you been thinking about selling your scrap jewelry? You don’t really use those old brooches, necklaces, bracelets, and rings any more. Maybe you could make a little money by selling them for scrap gold.
It’s a good idea: but you do need to be very cautious when selecting either a large company that recycles gold scrap jewelry, or a private dealer who will take your scrap jewelry off your hands for a price. Selling scrap jewelry may not be as simple a process as you might expect. If you happen to choose an agent or intermediary who is not as honest as he should be, you’ll find he is earning his commission by placing himself between you, the owner of the scrap jewelry, and the company that will process and recycle it. In such a case, you will get a lower price for your jewelry, and the processor will pay an inflated price for your recycled metal.
The biggest problem with selling scrap jewelry is that very often it is a mixture of pieces made of low-carat gold. For example, 10K gold is only 41.67% pure gold, while the remainder consists of soldering materials, alloys of silver, copper, nickel, and zinc, and possibly some bronze or brass. You may be expecting a higher price than a dealer can give you for 10K scrap jewelry. With that said, sometimes one of the items being sold may be an antique piece, whose value is much higher than the scrap gold’s intrinsic worth. Beautiful old estate jewelry may be rare, or may be antique, and would sell on its own for a lot more than you’d get for it as scrap jewelry.
If your buyer is an honest one, he will make you aware of this, and let you know that you can get much more money for your piece than you’d think from the simple “by weight” calculation. Most dealers will do just that; but then there are the few who would take advantage of you as an inexperienced scrap jewelry owner, and make their own large profit by re-selling the valuable item to an antique collector. There are actually two ways you can guard against this happening. First, if you sell your scrap jewelry to a large, well-established, and well-reputed gold merchant, instead of an individual dealer, you are unlikely to be the victim of such trust abuse. And second, even better – learn as much as you can about current buying and selling prices of scrap jewelry. A seller who is aware of the market is a seller who won’t be conned by a dishonest dealer.
You may be wondering why all scrap jewelry may not be suitable for recycling. Suitability for re-manufacturing depends on the quality of the raw materials in the items. Scrap jewelry with inferior raw materials can lead to contamination of the recycling process, and can add brittleness to the new product. Perhaps when the jewelry was made, a long time ago, there were casting defects due to poorly-melted lead. Or perhaps impurities were incorporated inadvertently, leading to porosity, excessive shrinkage, or separation of the layers of metal when they were rolled out. Another problem may have been incorrect annealing practices. Annealing is a process of heating the metal to a high temperature and then cooling it quickly; its purpose is to strengthen the product. Lack of understanding of the combinations of karat gold may have caused this fault. The recycled product may suffer from quench cracking (during the cooling process) or stress cracking, which will, of course, make the affected scrap gold useless.
If you are selling or buying scrap jewelry, remember that pieces made from precious metals other than gold may also be of interest. Take out your silver, platinum, and rhodium pieces as well. All precious metals are in great demand from buyers and processors of scrap jewelry. Look in your local telephone directory for some contacts. Or better yet, use your favorite search engine on the Internet. You will find plenty of information relevant to your proposed sale or purchase of scrap jewelry. Don’t overlook spot prices, and check their fluctuations too. Make a note of selling and buying services that could be of use to you in learning about scrap jewelry.
Remember: the more knowledgeable you are about jewelry and recycling gold, the better your chances of making a truly profitable deal when you sell your pieces!
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