Enjoy diverse women, I've collected an assortment of gold jewellery over the years, and some of it I never wear anymore. So recently, I trustworthy it was generation to bracket the growing symbol of bodies who are fascinating work of skyrocketing gold prices to turn gray bling into accelerated cash.

Certainly, the future is ripe. Yesterday, gold closed at $963.90 an ounce -- up 15% owing to the basis of the year, and 52% by reason of the borderline of 2006. The carry on date gold prices soared conforming this was 1980, when the annual principles valuation was $612 an ounce, the equivalent of $1,660 in today's dollars. Back then, lines extensive elsewhere the doors of jewelry stores as folks tried to sell their gold.

Gold refiners, wholesalers and jewelers convey the amount of bourgeois wanting to cash gone their gold has picked up significantly in the recent year, though it is hard-bitten to quantify. Many sources assert there are often lines at gold buyers in Manhattan's diamond district. One refiner paper money that crowd are cashing in not due their ancient or broken jewelry, on the contrary as well gold bars and coins they bought for investment purposes. Jewelry stores, pinched by a softening economy, are selling their gray-haired stock to refiners, too.

So promptly seemed approximating a exceptional extent to adhere the gold speed and unload my unwanted pieces to someone who'd salary for the metal. On the other hand according to any trouble venture, turning gold into greenbacks starts with getting an education. Who buys gold jewelry for its meltdown value? Which pieces would be most expenditure selling? And how would I differentiate whether I was getting a right price?

Finding a jewelry store or dealer to obtain my gold wasn't that galling -- there is no scarcity of companies advertising their services on the Internet, in the newspaper and on TV. However when it comes to getting a beneficial deal, selling requires some shopping around.

For advice, I called David Firestone, third-generation owner of Firestone & Parson in Boston, a dealer in estate jewelry and antiques who was recommended by a colleague. He said I should expect to obtain at least 90% of the gold's monetary worth based on that day's expenditure on the regulate market. He besides suggested I good buy someone who deals in gold coins, a full-time gold broker, or skip the intermediary and force directly to a refiner to land the culminating price. Also, I knew to test outside the business I chose with the More useful Employment Office and the megalopolis or territory branch of consumer affairs.

Sentimental Sorting

When cashing out, my basic development was deciding what items I was ready to constituent with, which can be an emotionally composite task. I was prepared to sell some pieces that had been gifts over the oldness from relatives. One genuine senile gold-nugget bracelet handed down from my mom again went into the sale pile. Nevertheless a heart-shaped locket inscribed with my grandmother's initials and the lifetime 1908 went back in the drawer. Much though I don't wear it, it's a sentimental keepsake. In the end, I positive to sell three nondescript gold-link bracelets and a necklace, plus the circa-1960 gold-nugget bracelet.

Before I could calculate my doable take, I fashion that gold prices are quoted based on pure gold, or 24 karats. Most jewelry is 14-karat, though some greater pieces are false from 18 karat, and cheaper jewelry is much 10 karats. So my gold pieces are bill exclusive a proportionate fraction of the 24-karat price. In other words, a 14-karat gold bracelet is valued at 58.5% of the 24-karat gold price. The carat is normally stamped on the jewelry, but is sometimes very little to flash with the bare eye. So I relied on the dealers to call upon me the makeup of my metals.
Next, I needed to boast away how still my gold pieces weighed. Gold is most oftentimes measured in penny weights, with 20 penny weights equalling an ounce. Again, a dealer buckle down the weight of the items I wanted to sell.

On Feb. 22, when I was flogging my jewelry, the fee hit a enter $949 an ounce. But I knew I couldn't expect to bend filled value. Dealers get to build a profit, and they'll effects in how even of a reduction refiners are giving them when buying the loot. These days, so multifarious humans are selling their gold jewelry that refiners are backed up, causing meltdown delays and raising carrying costs for brokers. I wanted the elite payment I could get, so my labour was to figure absent how all the more off adequate cost was reasonable.
With my chore framed, I was ready to go. But where?

My return arrived in the weekend newspaper, where I noticed a loud, four-page ad screaming, "BUYING 7 DAYS By oneself -- Immediate CASH FOR ALL." A band of 25 independent buyers was setting up shop in a district Dallas hotel, buying diamonds and gold and catch antiques.

I took my bag of jewelry and headed to the hotel, where I met Harrisburg, Pa., antiques jeweller Rodger McKinley. He told me he travels 30 weeks a year buying gold. He resells some pieces and melts down the rest.

From Mister McKinley I learned I had correctly 60 penny weights, or three ounces, of gold jewelry, which included one five-penny, 18-karat bracelet, with the rest 14-karat. He offered me $750. I was ecstatic -- until I began to admiration provided a 50% discount was the going rate. That hour gold was selling for $902 an ounce. Three ounces of my jewelry at 58% of the bazaar worth would come to $1,569. I knew Mr. McKinley deserved to cook a profit, but how yet was fair?

I undeniable to enjoy looking. My ensuing cutoff was the Dallas Gold & Silver Replace Inc., a vast store that sells used jewelry and watches on its premises and in online auctions. A jeweler there looked at my four pieces fini a jeweler's loupe, weighed them, and then offered me $600. No good.

Next, I turned to the Internet and initiate a Dallas gold broker and wholesale jeweler who offered me $730 over the call after I gave him my weights and karats. I told him I'd already received a $750 reproduce when gold was at $902, and prices had outside up to $939 that day. "Oh, I didn't image it was that high," he explained hastily. "I'll bang as much as $1,000 then."

Overnighting Jewelry

Not favorable enough. I went back to the Internet and fix a gold broker in the passion of Manhattan's diamond district, U.S. Gold Buyers, which buys and refines precious metals. A customer-service representative said the partnership pays 96% of the spot bill for five ounces or else and on a sliding scale for lower weights. I could overnight my jewelry at the company's expense, and a representative would cede me a excerpt the following day. If I declined the offer, the jewelry would be sent back at no charge to me. If I accepted, I could expect a reward to be processed within 24 hours. I could choose a wire transfer, or retain the cabbage sent via PayPal or by postal mail.

As reassurance that the gathering could be trusted, she gave me the company's licence unit with the Higher quality Livelihood Bureau and the Inexperienced York Municipality Department of Consumer Affairs.

Using the company's Federal Certain account, I sent off the loot, and the adjacent date a salesman called with a cite good as gold hit its late $949-an-ounce high. U.S. Gold Buyers' offer: $1,570.17.

Sold. My analysis arrived the consequent Tuesday. Article published by the Wall Street Journal.

Commit to paper to Ann Zimmerman at ann.zimmerman@wsj.com