Need advice. Selling gold and silver jewelry finds.

[JASONSPAZ1]

I was looking for some fresh advice on how and where I can sell my jewelry finds.
Are the refineries any good and which is a good one to use.
Guide me through the process from mailing the jewelry to them and getting aw check in the mail.
Do they return the stones? Any advice is welcome.

Thanks so much
Jason

 

[dfxone]

Look up aragold.net in Dallas, TX, pays 98% for gold, and 90% for silver. Tell them you metal detect and are a finds forum member, call them at 1-888-398-3118, they will answer all your questions. GH, Don

 

[Critterhunter]

Yep, ARA is legit. They only skim 2% off the day's stock market price on gold, less your K value of course. There is an online gold price calculator (not on their site) that many use to figure out the value of their gold in scrap weight, and it even allows you to enter a percentage to deduct from it in it's calculations. Easy to use. Just put in the weight, K, and 2%, and it'll spit out the value calculated from that day's gold prices. Forget the name of the site but google something like "online gold value calculator" or something like that.

Everybody I've ever heard that's calculated the value of their gold and then sent it to ARA has pretty much said the price they got was right on the money or within a dollar or two of what they thought they'd get. ARA no longer does business with new customers from what I hear in an attempt to shut down fly by night "We Buy Gold" stores who are screwing the walk in public and then sending it to ARA. They will from what I hear still do business with new customers so long as they are little guys who found their gold metal detecting and such. Tell them you heard about them on Findmall's detecting forums.

Some say it's useless to ship your gold insured unless you have an appraisal of it to use in the vent it's been lost or stolen in the mail.

There is another company called Midwest that seems 2nd most popular on the forums. They don't pay quite as well as ARA but still very high compared to walk in stores, of course. Walk in stores you're lucky to get 30 to 40% of the gold's actual value on the current day's market.

I have a local walk in store who gives me the 98% price of ARA if I want. They refused to believe it but called ARA and found out it's true for themselves. This store was fair in their prices compared to others so I figured they might be willing to wheel and deal a little bit. If you decide to go that route tell the store owner they can deduct say $15 or so for the cost and hassle of shipping your gold to ARA.

I've got one friend who's a gold smith, and to this day he seems to refuse to believe anybody would give 98% of the price of gold to a private seller. Despite me telling him that tons of people have found ARA legit and true to the 98%, he just doesn't believe it. One of these days I'm going to send him a picture of a ring on a scale to show it's weight, then a snap shot an online calculator giving the current 98% value price, and then another picture of a check in hand from ARA for that ring, just to finally put his doubts to rest.

 

[dewcon4414]

ONe of the owner recently posted this to clear up a lot of questions people were having: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/beach-shallow-water/337612-american-recycling-associates-they-still-good.html

I just got a rather large batch back from them and have been using them a couple of years now. EXCELLENT service. They will remove and return you stone on the gold only. They pay exactly what they say they do. Only time ive heard of an issue it got quickly resolved to the customers satisfaction. I have no problem recommending them. They do ask that you separate your gold. Call them and get a copy of their shipping form off their web site.

 

[BHNugget]

If you do some searching locally, you may find a good place to sell. Here where I live, there are a couple shops that deal in precious metal that will pay spot or slightly above spot (especially silver) because they know they can still sell it for more than what they are paying for it.