Selling Your Gold: Pawnshop Or Jewellery Store?

Can’t decide whether to sell your gold to a jeweller or a pawn shop? Maybe this will help. Over the last few years, more and more owners of jewellery shops have been looking to buy scrap gold, and so the options for who to sell to have opened up in a big way. The question is, how much pressure has this put on owners of pawn shops?

The answer, well not that much. Pawn shops are still buying as much as they always have, and if anything, have welcomed the healthy competition created by this. So if you’re wondering who you should be selling your scrap gold to, keep reading; because there simply isn’t an easy answer to that question.

Selling to a Jeweller

Up until fairly recently, jewellers have been generally uninterested with regards to buying jewellery from the private sector. Because of the high value and relatively high risk attached to each item bought and sold, the legislated process of keeping track of an item’s owners has been a little too much of a hassle to bother with. But with the credit crunch, and times being what they are, every business owner has had to adapt to the climate. In the spirit of this, many jewellers have been turned to buying gold and jewellery from the public. The thing is, that for a jeweller to stock an item is not always a practical way of going about things since people usually want to buy something personalised anyway, and so the items they buy cannot always be sold.

Selling to a Pawn Shop

Jewellers often seem like the safest bet, right up to the point where you discover Pawn Shops in Melbourne, Australia. There are a few advantages to selling to a pawn shop, but are any of them related to the price you will fetch? Well it depends on quite a few factors; their personal policies, why you are selling, the weight and quality of your gold, and whether or not you may be wanting it back later.

Considering price alone is usually not enough to compare the two, and the reason is that the gold price, is the gold price… is the gold price. You will never get exactly what is listed, but at least with a pawn shop the option is always there to get the item back later, if you really want to.

Working from a fixed price

The gold price may fluctuate somewhat, but it fluctuates the same the whole world over. Most jewellers will give you between 30% and 60% of what your jewellery is worth with that regard, and who can blame them? There is substantial risk in buying a piece that may not be wanted by anyone. People don’t generally go to jewellers to buy second hand jewellery, and so they need to cover themselves by offering you slightly less.

Pawn shops which buy gold such as Gold Buyers Melbourne have a little less pressure to deal with when it comes to the resale of gold, and so they can afford to take slightly bigger risks. Depending on the condition of the item, and what is being sold, you can stand to get back between 40% and 80% of the value of the gold in your ring, bracelet, or necklace (just to name a few). Often enough pawn shops will even sell to jewellers who are looking for a specific piece, and so the better risk means fetching a better price.

Which one should you be using

It can be difficult to determine which one you should be using, so shopping around and getting an idea of what you will be offered is a good first step in deciding. You need to consider as well, how quickly you want to unload the items. Jewellers often have to take you through a lengthy process of approval and negotiation before you will get any money out of them, and once the item is sold, the sale is final (unless you want to buy it back at a higher price).

Pawn shops on the other hand are good for those who need cash fast, and you can even have the item returned to you (in most cases) if you can return the loan within 90 days. So it really does depend on what you need.