This morning while we were out estate-saling, La Maya reported on a recent burglary in which the thieves made off with the neighbors’ jewelry, and only their jewelry. Other valuables, including an iPhone left sitting on a nightstand, Mac and PC laptops, and a large-screen TV were untouched. But a lifetime’s collection of jewelry was lifted, apparently for the gold.
A chat with the police revealed that gold is now selling for $1,300 an ounce. The vic, on advice from friends, paid a visit to a nearby pawn shop, claiming to be looking for a gift for a sister who desired rubies set in gold (exactly the description of a set the couple had picked up on a trip to Spain).
They were advised not to tell a pawn dealer that they were looking for stolen goods, because of course it’s wildly illegal to accept stolen property. And as we all know, no pawn dealer would ever do any such thing, eh? Word has it that if you say you’re looking for something that was taken, the pawnshop people will freeze you right out. Instead, claim you’re shopping for a purchase that resembles the stolen jewelry and hope they bring it forth.
Anyway, when she went into this nearby pawn shop, the dealer remarked that people are flocking to sell their gold. (Yeah! And presumably everyone else’s! :-))
Prices, he said, are high and unstable—just that morning the price of gold had risen $120. He pointed out that at the current prices, you could bring in an earring that’s lost its mate or an out-dated bauble and come away with a nice pocketful of cash.
Dealers weigh your jewelry and pay by the gram or by the troy ounce. Today a gram of gold was selling for $41.66. One gram equals .035 ounce.At the end of trading today, gold was selling for $41.66 a gram, or $1,295.83 an ounce. He said even a thin piece of gold of the sort that decorates an earring could be worth a couple hundred bucks.
La Maya said she’s going to dig out the orphaned earrings she’s tossed in the drawer in the forlorn hope of someday finding their lost mates, and she’s going to schlep them to the nearest pawn shop. I’ve got a couple of orphaned earrings myself, plus a pair of old 1970s hoop earrings, massively out of style (14k, as I recall) and a gold ring that no longer will slide over a knuckle.
At those prices, you could turn your discards into enough cash to pay off a credit-card balance or take yourself out to a very nice dinner or two or thee.
Think of that. Gives new meaning to “decluttering,” doesn’t it?
Images:
220kg gold brick, Chinkuashi Gold Museum, on loan from the Republic of China. Texcoco. Public domain.
Golden earring rendered using 3D software. Aldzine. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
That’s too bad about the jewelry. It reminds me of the other “big thing” for thieves around my parts — scrap metal. They’ll rip out anything that’s not nailed down in abandoned or empty buildings. My favorite is the story of a guy who broke into an apartment building in my town and actually ripped out the active water pipes, to sell as scrap. There were a lot of ticked off tenants that day!