Selling the Gold/Silver?

Rhino · August 2011

It's a long story, but have some gold/silver. They are either coins, rounds are bars. Most are 99.999% purity.

Were can I sell? I typically trade on bulliondirect, but they don't have these products listed. I took to local pawn shop and then a gold broker, both had absolutely insulting prices. Ebay doesn't seem bad, but generally don't like it for selling and don't want to chance getting scammed on this much money. What are my options here?

Thanatos · August 2011

Any of the people who buy gold from a typical consumer are going to give you insulting prices. Unless you have a line on a wholesaler or something like that, it's really not going to be worth selling.

admanb · August 2011

That's not necessarily true. There's a place in Bellevue and Seattle that pays market value. Doesn't even take a commission.

Skoal Cat · August 2011

If they are coins, take them to a numismatist.

Blake T · August 2011

Do you live near mint anywhere? They usually pay market prices.

Call them first obviously.

Xaquin · August 2011

ARA buys gold at I believe 98% melt value

They are highly reputable

http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=81823

rockmonkey · August 2011

I was actually wondering this same thing last week. I have quite a few old coins from my grandfather's old collection, U.S. currency and a lot of them are the old 90% silver coins. I was considering taking them to the coin shop and then thought if the coin doesn't have much value for collection purposes then it at the very least would have the value of the silver in them. I looked and found a website that broke down the weight of silver in each type of coin (in decimals of troy ounces obviously) and was rather surpised by how much they added up to.

Now if only I could find my 1 troy ounce commerative 99.999% purity silver coins I bought over 15 years ago at like 8 bucks a pop.

BlindZenDriver · August 2011

Wise choice to not sell at those places. Also look out if someone does an acid test to check the gold and tell you it's less pure than expected

PS. Quick warning from experience. Be careful selling something you may regret selling later on.

Djeet · August 2011

When I want to sell precious metal (coin) I've gotten the best price from a local gun store (not Cabela's, an independent shop). Melt value, though this particular place was a gun/coin shop, so if it was particularly rare you could fetch wholesale numismatic (not melt) value.

Forbe! · August 2011

http://www.hauserandmiller.com/refine/procedure.html

I've done business with these guys on a couple of occasions for refining precious metal scrap, mostly sterling/fine silver. I've also used them for purchasing fresh sheet and wire. They deal mostly with jewelers/metalsmiths, but I don't see why they wouldn't take coins or other forms of scrap. They've always been quick and courteous.

You are probably not going to get 100% of the value of your material unless you have a ton of it. Refiners and pawn shops have to cover their overhead.

As far as acid testing goes, its pretty much the standard for determining which alloy your metal is. I'm sure there are some shady people that will screw you and say you have something that is worth less than it actually is, but that is true for most things. Do your research before you deal with a company

Hevach · August 2011

Skoal Cat wrote:

If they are coins, take them to a numismatist.

This. There's a high chance what you have isn't particularly valuable on its own, but in my experience, coin dealers also pay much higher for metal content than gold/silver buyers. I sold off some old silver coins that were worth nothing on their own recently. For an example, gold/silver buyers generally pay $10-15 for a silver dollar. Coin dealers pay $20-25 for the metal content, and they'll recognize if you have anything valuable. I had a CC Morgan dollar. A gold buyer would have paid me $10-15 for it, coin dealer is selling it on comission for me with an asking price more than my car is worth.

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