Business & Tech
Rush to sell as gold nears $1,500 an ounce
Healdsburg, Sonoma County jewelry stores and pawn shops fielding deals.
Those gold earrings from good old Bob that you stashed in a drawer for two decades could see the light now that gold is almost at $1,500 an ounce.
"We started buying gold eight months ago," said Alex Jacobs, owner of in Healdsburg, Calif.
"I think a lot of people have already sold their gold," Jacobs added. "Now they wish they'd waited."
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
Jacobs said the gold-jewelery-selling customer traffic has been pretty steady since last year. He said he expects that will continue now that the price is ticking up.
Dianne's Estate Jewellry either buys vintage pre-1950s gold jewelry for resale or, if the gold jewelry is not suitable for resale, the store just buys the jewelry to melt down for the gold.
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
"If we buy it for the gold, we just weigh it and pay it," Jacobs said.
In nearby Santa Rosa, John Paul Liscandro The Pawn Advantage Store said he's seeing a bump in customers coming in with gold jewelry to sell.
He cautions that people should not expect to get "bazillions" for their stash just because the gold price is up.
"The $1,500 an ounce is for pure 24 carat, 100 percent gold," he said. That doesn't include other factors, such as the cost to the store to melt the gold down, the profit the store takes in to do the transaction or the quality of the jewelry and the gold.
"It depends on the weight, it depends on it there's a diamond in it, it depends on the carat," Liscandro said.
"It's kind of rough, because sometimes people come in who paid thousands of dollars for their jewelry at a jewelry store, and they want that back," Liscandro adds. Jewelry stores tend to have a higher markup than shops such as The Pawn Advantage Store, he said.
"We have some people come in three or four times in one day [to compare prices], and they say, 'Are you sure that's the price for that ring?'" he added.
Both Jacobs and Liscandro said their secondhand jewelry buyback operations are licensed and regulated by local authorities and should not be associated with quick hit "cash for gold" stores.
"We have to hold the jewelry for 30 days before we can do anything with it," Jacobs said. "With those fly-by-night operations, they just melt it down the next day and it's gone."
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.