You’ve no doubt noticed the massive growth in the popularity of investing in gold. Investment brokers are frequently asking you to invest, plus there are the masses of adverts on the television with companies asking you to sell them your scrap gold. So in this article, we’ll cover why you’d want to sell any scrap gold, and how you’d go about doing it.
Why should I sell my unwanted gold?
Although the price of gold has typically been increasing, just owning gold doesn’t earn you any interest (or dividends, etc). So unless you particularly enjoy wearing a gold bracelet or ring, that jewellery is not serving any real purpose. Therefore turning any unwanted items into cash can be a very useful cash injection in your investment portfolio. Sadly, some people just spend the money they get from selling gold, but I’m sure you know better!
Although gold is doing very well at this point in time, you might have investments that have stronger sustained growth, so you could make more money from you gold by selling it and investing it in better investment vehicles. Selling unwanted gold jewellery (simply called ‘scrap gold’ by the gold companies) is very easy to do, and as long as you own the item personally, it typically doesn’t attract any tax liabilities.
#1 Using a ‘Cash for Gold’ postal service
Companies offering to buy your scrap gold are extremely abundant, and offer the simplest and quickest process for selling gold. You simply get a quote for the gold you’re going to send, and then post of the gold items in an insured envelope. By return, your gold is valued and you receive a cheque. Very quick, and very easy.
It almost sounds too good to be true. But it’s not, as it works on a very simple principle. For example, say your gold is worth £100. These companies will offer you between 20% to 95% of the actual value of the gold. So you might get £20 to £95 cash for your £100-worth of gold. This means that they always make a profit from buying your gold. This is the ‘price you pay’ for having such a quick and easy service.
#2 Selling on eBay
If you know your gold very well, then selling on eBay will help you to get the best price for your gold. The strong interest in gold at the moment means that plenty of people are buying and selling gold on eBay. However, there are three things to bear in mind. 1) You really need to know how to value gold, to ensure you get a good price. 2) Buyers are motivated to find good deals so that they can make a profit, which means you’re unlikely to get 100% of the value of the jewellery. 3) eBay and PayPal fees can be expensive, costing up to 20% of your listed item.
If you’re thinking of taking this path, just do the maths to ensure you’re giving yourself a good deal.
#3 Visiting a bricks’n’mortar jewellery shop
Unless you have jewelery encrusted with valuable gems, the value of a piece of jewellery is typically little more than it’s weight in gold. However, most postal gold services only measure the value based on weight. So if you’ve got a gold ring with lots of precious gems, then visiting a jewellery shop is a great idea. These shops typically give you very good prices for your gold jewelery. It’s worth visiting a few shops to get a range of quotes, just to ensure you’re not getting ripped off. Clearly this takes a lot of time too.
If you’re selling your gold to a postal service, it’s usually worth visiting a jewelery shop to see if they can value your item. It’ll help determine if you’re getting a good price or not. If the postal service gives you a rubbish quote, then you can just go back to the jewelery shop.
A final thought…
To get the best value for your gold, you need to spend time researching the buyers that give you the best return. It doesn’t matter if these gold buyers are traditional shops, or they’re postal services, having a few quotes will ensure you get the best cash price. Then you can invest the money in any of your favorite investment vehicles.
