I'd appreciate some advice on direction

[Bullionstu]

Hey guys,

 

Been lurking on here for a while and I see there is a lot of knowledge here so I'm appealing for some advice. 

My PM collection began suddenly. I've an interest in caving, and exploring and photographing Victorian sewers and storm drains. One day whilst underground I noticed a gold ring. Didn't think much of it, just put it in my pocket. Wasn't till I got home I saw it was hallmarked.  After that I kept my eyes open.  I've amassed quite a selection of gold and silver, as well as pre '47 silver coins lost decades ago.

I've been educating myself in PM's as much as possible. At first I weighed all my silver in at the bullion dealers and bought a gold bar with the money. I now regret doing that as I see how much commission over spot I paid!

I would like to know if I'm better holding on to what is essentially scrap gold and silver, or chopping it in and buying a sovereign or something? I'm looking long term nest egg / investment.

 

Here is a year's worth of tat fished out of drains, rivers and old grated gutters and a few boot fair finds (I know what to look for now!)

[PansPurse]

Heya,

I'm no expert but I've picked up a little.

First up be aware that most jewellery isn't bullion-grade metal. Gold jewellery isn't 24 carat but 22, 20 or even as low as 10 carat (less than 50% pure). Another important factor is that the price of jewellery is mostly from the artistic design and workmanship than the value of the metal.

That probably doesn't actually offer you much help. What I would say is that you're probably going to get relatively poor rates selling your finds as scrap for the metal value (people who buy scrap gold and silver than look to melt it down and purify it, which costs them money, and they still want to be making a profit). In most cases you can probably get more selling items as second-hand jewellery or curios (as an aside, having a piece that I can explain to folks was found in a sewer would be a great conversation piece). But the tricky part is that it takes time to sell this way, whereas having bullion or coins are much more liquid and you can be confident of getting a better rate.

So I guess my thought would be to sell the pieces for as much as you can then use the funds from that to buy bullion bars or coins.

What do other folks think?

[mr-dead]

Some interesting looking pieces there and I am sure some will be worth a premium over scrap melt value.

May be worth getting some of the nicer pieces appraised then sell up and sink the profits into something like sovereigns.

 

p.s. Hatton Garden have a good reputation for selling scrap :

http://www.hattongardenmetals.com/sell-scrap-gold.aspx

[Pete]

If you send jewellery containing stones to any bullion dealer they will not give you anything for the stones, precious or otherwise.
Silver is so cheap at the moment that junk jewellery in silver is worth very little.
Gold is always worth 95% spot or more ( HGM ) but remember 9ct gold is only 0.375 fine gold.
If you can check the hall marks you may have a mix of gold 9ct to 18ct so with stones removed you can weight your pieces and if you complete the HGM form you will get a good idea of value instantly.

As others have said, jewellery is priced according to its design and appeal and not it's metal content.
Some pieces can be worth 10 times their scrap value so I would get everything cleaned up and polished and offer for sale individually.
Some high street jewellers buy & sell secondhand stuff so maybe that's the quickest route and then buy some gold sovereigns or half sovereigns or bullion silver coins at rock bottom price i.e. circa £15 per ounce or less; but don't pay VAT on top - some quick checks on this site will provide answers.