Tired Of Low Ball Offers

You might check your local jewelry stores which have been in place for years. Chances are you'll get your best offer for scrap gold and silver from them.

As sad as it is, many government entities consider coin shops and pawn shops to be the same basic thing- a place to fence stolen merchandise. Because of that, many shops have to hold coins and jewelry for 30 days or longer which can be a killer when you deal in constantly changing PM prices. In St. Louis, my local dealer has to photocopy your drivers license/ID if you come in to sell something and a description of the sale is written on the copy. That creates a searchable record for police looking for stolen items. Fortunately, he does not have to hold the items for an excessive period of time and the real thieves usually leave empty handed when asked for an ID anyway

I understand exactly what you're saying biochem. One day in a friends shop, as I was looking through his junk boxes, a "scruffy looking fellow" kept coming in and then would leave when he saw me glance up. "J" finally told him to come in and that we wouldn't bite. He wanted to sell a Krugerand he had in his pocket (no flippie just loose). John shook his head and asked for the coin and a license and he'd give him a quote. The license was split open and a black and white photo (like an arcade photo) fell on the counter. The guy explained that he was down on his luck and needed to sell the coin for food. I looked away while "J" offered him a couple of hundred bucks and the guy jumped at it. The coin was worth probably $450 in those days. The guy nearly ran out of the shop with the money. J called after him that he should probably get a new license. "J' said he looked into the coin but found nothing at the local police station on stolen Krugerrands.

Well, I'd really rather melt this stuff down for the kids, but the dateless and junk gold I have can just go back in the box until gold an silver go higher. I know of two coin dealers in my area paying 90% of spot for all gold and silver due to their melt program. I was just hoping to transform the metals instead of selling them.

I have such a hard time selling my stuff; even the bullion coins. It's like loosing a kid! Oh, I forgot to check the ads in Coin World. More to follow if you're interested.

If I had the same goal you did I'd keep anything that was in coin form because it's in known quantities. If you have gold/silver in other forms like jewelry or flatware your best bet will be to sell as close to melt as possible & use the money to buy bars/rounds/coins. Unless you have a large enough quantity & a business license you can't deal with the big refiners, & they are the only ones that offer terms that make it economically feasible to convert your actual gold to bullion form.

When you say "junk silver and gold" , are you referring to coins or things like broken jewelry

I haven't looked on their website in over a year but up through late 2009 they still offered that option. Unfortunately, I asked them several times throughout '09 if they could do that & they always replied that didn't have anything in stock.

I believe there are a couple other places individuals can have their karat gold refined & returned. The problem is it's returned as "casting shot" which leaves you in pretty much the same position you were in when it was karat gold.

This creates three problems:

• How do you protect yourself against PM price drops?
• How do you store it securely?
• What happens when you normally buy $1000 a day, and suddenly you're being slammed with $20,000 a day? You run out of buying funds, that's what.

there is a company... I forget what its called, but you can send in your junk silver and gold, and they will melt it and make it into bars, rounds, w/e, and take like 10% of the metal for the cost of melting it.

I dunno if that would be something you were interested in

*EDIT*
I think this was mentioned above already