Great question! Here’s the situation with selling gold. There is a common denominator when we are talking about people in the gold buying industry. In some ways it helps to keep things fair and honest among the various buyers out there.
Everyone works off the same basic price point. Gold is traded on the open market nearly 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s price is constantly moving – but it’s the same price everywhere you go, anywhere on the planet.
It’s this one common value that everyone works with to determine how much gold is worth and therefore how much they can buy gold for. It’s a constant and won’t change.
So it doesn’t matter if you go to a pawn shop, a gas station, a jewelry store or anywhere else – they are all working off the same basic value of gold itself.
Because of that the overall public gold buying market is normally pretty stable and consistent.
That having been said, of course some buyers can choose to pay you a higher percentage of that set price of the gold market and that’s really the only thing that you have to watch out for.
How Much Do Pawn Shops Pay For Gold?
That’s a good question and the answer is – it depends.
It depends on the pawn broker and how much they are personally willing to spend on it. Typically speaking, most pawn shops will offer between 40-80% of the actually value of Gold.
Remember, they have to buy it for sell than they can sell it for for it to make sense for them to get involved with it. On top of it, because the price is always moving, if it takes a sudden dip, they don’t want to be caught having paid to much for your gold when they go to sell it.
Pawn shops and jewelers do the exact same thing – so it is a tie here on which is better.
What About Diamonds And Other Stones?
When it comes to diamonds, you might be surprised to find out that jewelers often work closely with pawn shops in their area for diamonds and more often than not – a pawn shop will pay you more for the stone than a jeweler will.
Sound confusing?
Well when a jeweler has a stone he can only really sell it to a walk in customer looking for that exact kind of stone, so he’s limited on what he can do with it.
But when a pawn shop buys a diamond, they can sell it to a walk in customer, just the like jeweler – OR – they can find another jeweler in the area looking for that kind of stone.
That’s not to say that a jeweler couldn’t sell diamonds to another jeweler, but it doesn’t seem to be nearly as common as it is between pawnbrokers and jewelers.
The pawn broker typically has more ways to sell the stone, so they often pay a little more for it.
Pawn Shop Or Jeweler?
Just because of how pawn shops can deal with diamonds, I say that a pawn shop will give you a better value on your gold and diamond jewelry.
The Nerd’s Experience
Because of how expensive gold and diamonds are when they are new, it’s rare for people to be very happy with the prices when they go to sell them no matter who they sell it to.
Pawn shops do offer you additional flexibility though in that they can also make you a loan against your jewelry if you aren’t quite ready to sell it yet.
That’s just something to keep in mind for the future in case you are ever in the positions where you have to get some money out of your jewelry.
That About Does It
Thanks as always for reading. If you have any questions or comments please leave them in the comment field below.
The Head Nerd
Mandy Dormain started working for Pawn Nerd in 2020. Mandy grew up in a small town in northern Tennessee. But moved to New York for university. Before joining Pawn Nerd, Mandy briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers politics and economy stories.
