Ronnie Polaneczky: For some, it's a Golden Age

ADMIT IT: You've heard those ads urging you to cash in your gold and silver for instant bucks. And your first thought has been, "Man, that looks like a scam."

Your second thought? "I wonder what my stuff is worth?"

The latter answer, for me, was $48.33. That's how much I made last weekend selling two gold chains I didn't care for, some broken silver jewelry and heavy earrings I stopped wearing because they pulled my earlobes past my chin.

But I had nothing on Mary Allen of Sharon Hill, who waltzed out of a hotel on City Avenue with a check for $603.60 for jewelry from past suitors who, she said, "I don't like anymore."

"I still need another $900 to pay for my vacation," said Allen, 50. "I'm going home and look through my jewelry again and see who else I don't like."

Who knew romantic breakups could pay so well?

Remember how your grandfather advised, "Don't buy stock; buy gold. It'll hold its worth in the next Great Depression?"

Pop-Pop was right.

As stock values have plummeted, the demand for gold as a safe investment has so increased, mints can't find enough to produce ingots, coins and "shots" - tiny BBs - for investors wary of stocks.

So dealers are buying up scrap gold, which they sell to smelters, who flip it to the mints.

That's why we've been bombarded lately by ads imploring us to sell our broken, outdated and unwanted jewelry.

It can pay well.

The day I sold my stuff, gold was selling at $1,002 per troy ounce (the unit of measure for precious metals). That was about $10 more than the previous week, and more than $100 higher than this time last year.

(Silver has become more valuable too, but its price remains a fraction of gold's).

"People who wouldn't normally sell their gold are cashing out," said Tod Gordon of Carver W. Reed & Co., the Center City pawn shop and jewelry dealer.

Indeed, last week, he spent an evening at the home of a Main Line woman who hosted a "gold party," at which Tod assessed her friends' baubles and paid them if they wanted to sell.

Unlike other home-based sales soirees, "You actually leave with more money than you came with," said Tod.

Selling opportunities abound, from online companies to which you mail your stuff for reimbursement, to local dealers willing to pay you on the spot.

The weekend I went looking to sell, I visited two dealers:

ANS Coins, a Northampton, Pa., buyer, which had set up shop in a hotel room at the Hampton Inn in Bensalem.

And Goldmans East, a Yardley-based precious-metals company, which had taken over a conference room at the Hilton Hotel on City Avenue.

Both offered me roughly the same price. But I went with Goldmans, because the ebullient women running the operation - Cynthia Walker and Katherine Rotolo - had created such an engaging and "girl-friendy" atmosphere, it was like hanging out with my sisters.

Which was good, because Pennsylvania laws require sellers to divulge so much information - including date of birth and a thumbprint - we might as well be family.

Katherine tested my jewelry for its precious-metal content, then weighed it. One set of earrings held garnets, which she popped out with a tool and handed back to me, cheerfully saying, "We're not in the gem business."

Local laws vary, but in Philadelphia, sales are recorded in detail and submitted to police, to check against stolen-property records. If all looks legit, the breakdown begins.

For security reasons, Goldmans pays only by check, and an unobtrusive-looking armed guard mans the door.

"We want people to feel good about selling to us," said Cynthia, who moves operations this weekend to the Crown Plaza on City Avenue. "If someone has a beautiful antique piece that an estate dealer might pay more for, we'll tell them. Or we might tell them to keep it. You don't want to regret that you didn't pass a ring to your children."

Before I left, I couldn't resist finding out what I could get for my 14K wedding band.

The verdict: $26.10 - a little more than a dollar for each year of my marriage. I'll keep the ring. Unlike Mary Allen and her ex-beaus, I still like the man who gave it to me. *

To see a video of Ronnie selling her jewelry, go to http://go.philly.com/gold.

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/

polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at

http://go.philly.com/ronnieblog.