Don't Sell Your Gold, Silver or Diamonds at Gold Parties or Online

I have written several articles published on Associated Content relating to finding and selling gold for a profit. These articles are:

Find Almost Free Gold at Thrift Shops Yard Sales Beginner Guide

Find Almost Free Gold Advanced Guide

How to Find Almost Free Silver

How to Make Big Money with Gold and Silver

In these articles I explain that you can easily get 70% to 80% of gold Spot price at honest gold buying stores, rare coin stores and other venues which buy gold. I wrote these articles before the big jump in precious metals price of 2008 began. Unfortunately as gold and silver prices rose, so did the number of scam artists who would cheat you by only paying 30% of the spot price of gold in a fancy setting of a gold party or by tricking you to first send your gold by mail and sending you whatever they decide to offer. These new venues are often scams and I hope you have not been caught and lost the majority of money you deserve for the gold and silver you sold.

I noticed this trend in comments from people who read my articles but sent their precious metals to people who took advantage of them. This low payment is actually legal. Once someone has your valuables they can give you any amount of money they want without fear of legal action. If they decided to pay a customer $1 for a troy ounce of pure gold, worth $750 on today's commodity spot index, they legally can. There is no fixed price at all that the government sets as a fair price, so it is buyer beware.

The average honest gold buyer pays about 70% of gold spot price. At $750 a troy ounce for pure or 24K gold, this would be $525 you should be paid. Some buyers actually pay 80% of spot price to good customers, which would give you $600. However If you sent your gold in to some internet buyer you would get as little as $225 per troy ounce, perhaps less. This would be true for gold parties as well.

In order to not get ripped off you should do the following things to protect yourself:

First do not sell blind. This means do not put your valuables in a box or envelope and send it to a post office box displayed by any web site. Just do not sell your valuables this way.

Second if you take your gold to a gold party, which I do not recommend, first calculate the weight of the gold you have and get the spot price from http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html which updates gold and silver prices all day long and is free to use. Armed with these two figures and the simple calculation from my articles, you will know the true gold value of your items. Then multiply this by 70%. When you get to the gold party ask them point blank what percentage of spot they pay for gold. If it is less than the amount you know that it's worth, beat a hasty retreat and sell it in a less party like environment but where you will get a fair price.

After all gold is wealth and easily converted to money. There is no reason you should make someone else rich by selling them your undervalued precious metals. Use a good old fashion yellow pages to find gold buyers and ask them too how much below spot price they pay for gold. Jewelers in my experience are very bad payers for used gold. Pawn brokers are generally only slightly better. Look up rare coin stores and if they do not buy gold they surely know a fairly honest place that does.

Good luck and make lots of cash.