Great little treasure haul there!
In reference to you guys talking of ARA...There was recent conversation in both the beach and view forums on them. They seem to have changed their policy to not dealing with the public. However, if you already have an account with them they will still deal with you, and also I heard that even if you haven't got an account with them, if you tell them you heard of them on Findmall as a metal detectorists they'll still accept you as a new account. Don't know if all that was said is true in those threads, but there you go...
I've delt with them and they were great. Sure enough, they only seem to skim 2% if you way your item to that day's stock market price of gold and then compute the numbers with an online calculater for that current day's price (not on ARA's site, google something like "gold weight market price calculator", and then put in 2% as the discount or whatever).
I've heard (?) that it's useless to insure your gold when shipping, because unless you have a receipt for what you paid for it, there is no way to get your money back should it be lost or stolen in transport. So unless you have appraisals done, which costs money, insuring is probably not going to help. And, somebody said that even if you have the right paperwork to prove their value, good luck dealing with the post office which could take months or even years to get your money back.
I had went around to all the local cash for gold places one time to price a ring's scrap value with them. Shocking they'll only give about 25 to 30% of the value of gold for that day. Then I hit a local little one man shop that deals in coins and such. His price was extremely fair for a walk in shop compared to the others, so I've delt with him in the past selling him face value silver coins and such. One day I headed in there and told him of ARA, and wanted to know if he could come anywhere near their 2% skim price. I told him I was more than willing to take $50 less than that price just to save me the cost of shipping a ring to ARA and the real or unreal perceived risk involved in it getting lost or stolen in the mail.
He didn't believe me about ARA, so he called them to see while I stood there, and when he got off the phone he said I was right about the 2% thing. He then told me he'd match ARA's price for any given day I come in on gold, so long as I didn't tell other locals of his special price for me. I said no problem, since his regular prices were already more than fair to people compared to other local shops. I then asked him how he could match ARA with only 2% being skimmed, and all he would tell me is not to worry, that he was going to make money on scraping the gold ring. It was a plain ring, so I doubt he meant he could re-sell the ring for above scrap price to a customer.
I was so happy, and knowing how tough it is to pay overhead for a business in rent and such, that I told him that I didn't want ARA's price, and to keep at least what he is saving me in shipping and a bit more for his trouble. He refused, and told me once again not to worry that he's making his money off of it. Really nice guy, and now I don't have to worry about shipping to ARA or waiting for a check in the mail.
