The question I get most often from people when they discover I’m a jeweler really isn’t, “How do I sell my gold?” Instead, it’s always, “When do I sell my gold?” There has been a great deal of marketing over the last few years, and for the most part, it isn’t really difficult at all to find a place to sell gold. You have gold buying pop-up stores all over. You can find some of them advertised on bus stops. You have television commercials urging you to pack up your gold and send it out of state so you can get a check back in the mail. Pawn shops. Me and jewelers like me. It feels like everyone is buying gold.
So, you know how to sell it.
But when?
I understand. Bert Levi Family Jewelers has been around for three decades. I’ve seen how the price of precious metals moves, and whenever it goes up like it has recently, people always try to get me to help them time the market. After all, the financial media is quick to point out that gold has grown double the S&P 500 this year. That provides a very large incentive to sell, right?
You’d think that.
However, what I deal with most is people who are afraid of selling too soon. I remember something similar happening twenty years ago, too, when housing prices surged and people who wanted to sell were afraid if they sold too soon they might leave thousands of dollars on the table. I recall people with no interest in real estate at all suddenly looking at neighborhood comps every single day. Something like that is happening with gold right now.
Let me start by saying I’m not a financial advisor and this isn’t investment advice. Second, I’m not talking about gold bullion or coins. When I talk about selling gold, I mean gold jewelry. Hanging onto gold coins and other bullion as an investment strategy is something else altogether.
People don’t usually like my thoughts on this subject but, well, here they are. If I needed to sell jewelry, I would sell when I need the money. I won’t look at the market. I won’t try to time it. If I don’t need to sell but I don’t wear the items in question and don’t feel an attachment to them, I sell immediately and don’t try to time anything.
If I buy gold, I buy with intent. I will use it for jewelry in almost every case. However, I do have percentage guidelines and I can promise you, if gold reaches the return I need for my business, I don’t hold onto it hoping to get five percent more.
See, to me, timing is almost always counterproductive. A person forgets why they’re selling in the first place and the amount becomes a victory or a failure, a game. It’s almost gambling. My general thoughts are that if you intend to sell, sell. If you aren’t sure you want to sell, I think holding onto gold is always better. It will still be a precious metal in ten years.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, such as they are. If you need to sell jewelry in San Diego, I hope you’ll give me a call. We always do all we can to offer a fair deal.
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