Gold and silver side business?

[harbl_the_cat]

My wife and I went garage saling a few weeks ago, and I bought 2 gold bangles at a garage sale for $0.50.

I had my magnifying glass with me and saw what I thought were 10k and 14k markings.

My in-laws are jewellers and this weekend I took the bangles to them to have them test them.

To my surprise, they confirmed they actually were 14k and 10k with a value over $300.

The acid test looks very straight forward and the kits look like their available online.

I was thinking that maybe a good sidebusiness I could do would be to offer a "second opinion" appraisel service, informing clients I'm not a professional jeweller or assayer, but that I can give a rough estimate for how much thier gold and silver jewellry is.

I would schedule appointments with people and meet them at a place convineient for them. I would then give a free quote, based on a visual inspection of various gold/silver items, but charge a fee to do an acid test. I would offer to buy up a person's jewellry at a significant discount of the market price based on the visual inspection and a higher price after testing it and confirming it's purity (but still pricing in the possibility of fakes or inaccurate test results). However, even with the visual inspection, I'd tell them the actual weight, purity, and approximate value of their metal and how I calculate the cost. The price I offer to buy prices in the risk I'd take from errors, fakes, and personal expenses.

After I accumulate enough gold/silver and if/when the market price is high enough, I would take my cache to a local shops I know assay and recycle scrap gold/silver, have it assayed, and resell it.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

The way I figure it, if some people are ignorant enough to sell 1/5 oz of gold for under $1 or swap junk silver at a bank face value, this kind of service could really help people AND be profitable.

[Quest]

I guess you would have to check your area for businesses that are already doing this. In Toronto there are lots of storefront locations that people can bring there Jewellery to for a free appraisal and they will do an acid test at no cost. There are also plenty of individuals who also do it on the side.

[Viper_99]

(06-23-2012 05:18 PM)harbl_the_cat Wrote:  My wife and I went garage saling a few weeks ago, and I bought 2 gold bangles at a garage sale for $0.50.

I had my magnifying glass with me and saw what I thought were 10k and 14k markings.

My in-laws are jewellers and this weekend I took the bangles to them to have them test them.

To my surprise, they confirmed they actually were 14k and 10k with a value over $300.

The acid test looks very straight forward and the kits look like their available online.

I was thinking that maybe a good sidebusiness I could do would be to offer a "second opinion" appraisel service, informing clients I'm not a professional jeweller or assayer, but that I can give a rough estimate for how much thier gold and silver jewellry is.

I would schedule appointments with people and meet them at a place convineient for them. I would then give a free quote, based on a visual inspection of various gold/silver items, but charge a fee to do an acid test. I would offer to buy up a person's jewellry at a significant discount of the market price based on the visual inspection and a higher price after testing it and confirming it's purity (but still pricing in the possibility of fakes or inaccurate test results). However, even with the visual inspection, I'd tell them the actual weight, purity, and approximate value of their metal and how I calculate the cost. The price I offer to buy prices in the risk I'd take from errors, fakes, and personal expenses.

After I accumulate enough gold/silver and if/when the market price is high enough, I would take my cache to a local shops I know assay and recycle scrap gold/silver, have it assayed, and resell it.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

The way I figure it, if some people are ignorant enough to sell 1/5 oz of gold for under $1 or swap junk silver at a bank face value, this kind of service could really help people AND be profitable.

I don't think you can go wrong - there is not a lot of investment in capital costs. You will find out quickly how easy it is or isn't to find people who will use your service. Go for it!

[harbl_the_cat]

(06-23-2012 08:52 PM)Quest Wrote:  I guess you would have to check your area for businesses that are already doing this. In Toronto there are lots of storefront locations that people can bring there Jewellery to for a free appraisal and they will do an acid test at no cost. There are also plenty of individuals who also do it on the side.

I think my niche will be that I'll actually schedule appointments with people to meet them at some place that is convenient for them. I think that would appeal to less than mobile people, especially seniors.

I'll also focus quite a bit on education. Informing people how to calculate the value of their jewellery, how the metals are priced, and especially how not to get ripped off by Cash4Gold scams.

My big thing is also that I'm planning to be a stay at home Dad when my second child is born and this seems like the sort of thing I can do while I'm on pogey.

[Viper_99]

I wish you all the best - let us know how it goes!

[boyfromdixie]

you will have to run you an ad on craigslist there is lots of folks on there that will meet with you to buy your silver and gold.

[harbl_the_cat]

(06-25-2012 01:08 PM)boyfromdixie Wrote:  you will have to run you an ad on craigslist there is lots of folks on there that will meet with you to buy your silver and gold.

I wouldn't sell any of my gold or silver to anyone.

I'd simply try to educate some people who want to sell their jewellery on how not to get scammed by people on Craigslist

If anything, I'd like to try to teach people NOT to sell any of their gold and jewellery, given the potential for the gold and silver prices, I think it would be silly to sell now unless you absolutely had to.

[Cointreau]

May the best pet win!
I would like to have a wasp as a pet. It could sting my ass every time I get back from work.
Yes, I watched the youtube clip but I didn't get anything out of it. No surprise there really.
But here's some children's programmes that do it for me and did it for me:
My all time favourite was Banana Splitz, with Snorky and the monkey character guaranteed to crack me up. The quadbike antics at the end of each show used to kill me. The Clangers held me spellbound when I was very young and I also liked 'catch the pigeon, catch the the pigeon', can't remember the name of that one now, the one with Pink Penelope and dastardly dog.
Also I used to watch a kiddies programme called Rainbow. At the time I watched it in all innocence, but now I belatedly realise just how gay it was. Bungle was a very gay bear. George was a pink hippo with big eyelashes, Zippy was a frog with a zip in his mouth, and Geoffrey the human was a bit 'suspect' shall we say. Captain Pugwash was another one that seemed to get past the censors with characters like Seaman Staines and Master Bates.
Also watched Monkey Magic which in hindsight was a load of rubbish.
I would put in the links but I'm not very computer literate.

[Cointreau]

I was of course referring to Wacky Races, good old fashioned american entertainment.

[jackrobert]

This is one of the best business to earn money. There is a lot of demand of gold and diamond jewelry and anyone can earn much money with the help of it. If you want to get its franchise then you can get it easily.

_______________________
start a jewelry business

[nigerian prince]

robot?

(11-19-2012 03:20 AM)jackrobert Wrote:  This is one of the best business to earn money. There is a lot of demand of gold and diamond jewelry and anyone can earn much money with the help of it. If you want to get its franchise then you can get it easily.

_______________________
start a jewelry business

[Viper_99]

(11-19-2012 03:36 AM)nigerian prince Wrote:  robot?

(11-19-2012 03:20 AM)jackrobert Wrote:  This is one of the best business to earn money. There is a lot of demand of gold and diamond jewelry and anyone can earn much money with the help of it. If you want to get its franchise then you can get it easily.

_______________________
start a jewelry business

Not a robot, he left a question for BJF as well!

[harbl_the_cat]

You know, I was thinking.

Stupidly (before I knew the value of gold and silver), I lost my wedding band, which I think was about a 1/4th oz, 18k white gold ring (eek) that my inlaws gave me at my wedding (they're jewellers).

Maybe to mock my stupidity, they made me a smaller band out of silver, using melted down .999 bullion. I really like that ring, although it was quite flimsy and my in-laws didn't stamp it.

I took it back to have them melt it down and make me a beefier one (it was VERY soft and warped easily) - but that got me thinking. It was a 3 gram ring of .999 silver (1/10th). I wonder if there would be much demand for such rings if I could get my in-laws to melt them down.

[Honey]

Hey Harbl.. There are so many people that are being led astray as to the price of their jewelry. If educated, a lot of these people would choose to hold onto their gold jewelry or at least not get ripped off. These "cash for gold" people are really taking advantage and are only paying around $20 to $29 a gram. I figure spot is about $55.00 a gram.

I applaud any business that will help to educate these people. If they still wish to sell and want the cash after you have informed them, then that is a bonus for you and you can also sleep sound at night.

[harbl_the_cat]

(11-21-2012 01:33 PM)Honey Wrote:  Hey Harbl.. There are so many people that are being led astray as to the price of their jewelry. If educated, a lot of these people would choose to hold onto their gold jewelry or at least not get ripped off. These "cash for gold" people are really taking advantage and are only paying around $20 to $29 a gram. I figure spot is about $55.00 a gram.

I applaud any business that will help to educate these people. If they still wish to sell and want the cash after you have informed them, then that is a bonus for you and you can also sleep sound at night.

Yeah - it does seem quite shady that some of the cash 4 gold places offer less than half what the spot price is. It almost seems like thievery.

My original thought was if someone had a quote from one of those places, I offer them a price much closer to, but slightly lower than spot.

After all, if one of those places was offering $50 for a piece of gold that's actual melt value was close to $100; both myself AND the person owning it would benefit more if I offered them $80 for it than if they sold it to them.