How to Make the Most Cash for Your Old Jewelry

You can't flip a channel without running across a commercial showing you happy people who have just received oodles of cash for selling their old "junk" jewelry. According to these commercials, picking up an extra couple hundred dollars is as easy as stuffing your old broken gold chains and bracelets in their prepaid envelopes and shipping them off.  Before you head to the post office, however, there are a couple of things you should know to make sure you receive the best payout.

Why They Want Your Junk Jewelry

"Turn that old, out-dated or broken jewelry into cash" is the siren call, the average "gold to cash" commercial sings. The entire premise of the commercials seems to be that they're helping you out by giving you a way to get rid of old jewelry that's just cluttering up your home. The fact is, they're looking to turn a pretty penny themselves. Precious metals like gold and silver have reached an all time high in recent years. For example, on Tuesday an ounce of gold (approximately 31.1034768 grams) traded for $1876.90 and an ounce of silver traded for $42. This means even "cheap" jewelry, which wouldn't have much, if any, retail resale value can be melted down and sold. The more of this scrap metal a company can collect, the more money they can make.

Melt Value, Appraisal Value and Why It Matters

Companies that buy gold or silver by the gram are basically collecting it for melt value. Melt value is different from appraisal value in that it doesn't matter who designed the jewelry, what it looks like, the history behind it, or even if it has valuable gemstones attached. While an appraiser would use these details to determine an appraisal (or replacement) value, a company collecting scrap metal will only be concerned with how much pure metal can be retrieved from your jewelry once it is melted down. 

10, 14, 18, or 24

Gold trade prices are based on an ounce of "pure" gold. Gold purity is measured in karats and 24 karats is the highest level of purity. The melt value of gold jewelry declines proportionately as it's purity declines. This means a 10 karat ounce of gold will only be worth 41.7% of the going rate, as compared to a 24 karat ounce of gold.  

To Mail or Not to Mail, That is the Question

Selling your scrap jewelry is a complicated matter - much more so than the commercials make it seem. You can make money from selling your junk jewelry, but you need to have reasonable expectations. If you're shipping off three 10K bracelets weighing a total of 3 grams, for instance, you can reasonably expect to make about $40. The company you sell your old jewelry to also makes a difference; you will generally get a better price selling directly to a refiner than to a  or jeweler or random "gold buying" store. It can and does pay to shop around for the best offer, but keep in mind the value of precious metals fluctuates from day to day, so no one will guarantee the price they give you today is the same you get tomorrow.

One Last Thought

If your jewelry contains precious or semi-precious stones, is potentially collectible, or could be classified as an antique, think long and hard before you ship it off to sell at melt value. Once it's been melted, there's no recovery possible.