Need advice on buying gold...

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
xelexo
Gold Refining Forum

Help Support Gold Refining Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
P

pu_239

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Messages
51
Hello guys, some of you may know of my purchase of ram. I was expecting to make a profit(not much but a little something) and I lost 40 dollars. I started to look in to broken/scrap jewelry on ebay. I see things that seem like a decent deal... for example

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LADYS-GIRLS-14K-SOLID-GOLD-IRISH-CLADDAGH-RING-SIZE-5-5-3-70-GRAMS-WEAR-OR-SCRAP/191448430746?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D5c2a8e3b014d45bd8b0578dba8f285ec%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D20131017132637%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D191448430746

it's 14k 3.70g gold ring, gold value is 48 dollars.

My plan is to pay 80% of it's gold value, place a max bid for 38 dollars - shipping and refine it myself or sell it as is. I know some people who are willing to pay 90-95% of spot price, this would be a sell price for 45 dollars. Since this is an auction i am hoping to get it for less. Lets say i get it for 30 dollars. This would be a 15 dollar profit?

Obviously the profit isn't much, but this is just an example. Is my logic flawed, am I missing something or some how being deceived? If so, what would you recommend to buy jewelry?
 
if its real your $15.00 profit today may be a little more as gold goes up

and now that you gave me a link to a possible good deal you will have to fight me for it :p just joking. but next time try uploading the photos ?!?
 
From what I understand of k jewelry, from the forum, It maybe marked 14k but can be as little as 12k so figure that into the narrow margin of profit. Gold buyers around here, Pennsylvania, will only pay around 30% of average market...

Calculating and buying and selling is how much you know/ learn, and how crooked you can be and still sleep at night.


B.S.
 
eBay is very strange.
Very rarely can you find any lot's that will give you a little meat usually I end up paying over spot on silver just so I can have some scrap to use for inquartation so I can leave my crystals alone.
But try as you may your lot's will never seem to reach the high prices some sellers get every day.
I have been running test's for the past year and I get the impression there is some thing a little funky with the way the eBay market is controlled.
They plead innocence but I do not think such pricing anomaly's could happen with out there algorithms being used to give some players an unfair advantage.
 
pu_239 said:
Is my logic flawed, am I missing something or some how being deceived? If so, what would you recommend to buy jewelry?
Click to expand...

While your logic isn't flawed, in the Ebay environment, it's useless. As Justin noted, and you will eventually come to realize, very rarely will there be any "profit" on a piece. I have noticed the same curious runups he has. Though I attribute it to unscrupulous dealers rather than to Ebay, it is, nevertheless, a reality. My lots never reach above spot because I don't bid them up. I don't attribute it to Ebay because I believe they have a motive to see every auction go higher, not just those of choice users.

If you are looking to buy metals, use your model on people in your region/area/city. Place ads on Craigslist. That's how I grow my gold karat stock. It works very well and if you are personable and fair, you won't believe the things you'll get a chance to buy. I even bought an NFL alumni ring, from the recipient, for 80% of spot and a personal guarantee that I won't resell it until he passes away.
 

Attachments

  • ring.jpg
    ring.jpg
    4.5 MB · Views: 297
Thanks guys.

@Panther, yes I was aware of that rule, but I didn' take it in to consideration in to my calculations,I will.

@justin, i added some items to my watch list, it was weird, at closing they where all sold over stock price. I see what you're saying.

@andy, When i get some money, I'll place ads. That's a pretty cool thing you got there.

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
Knowledge is your most valuable tool. For several years I've changed xenon arc lamps for my customers knowing that the old lamps I left behind they would break to make them safe (since they're pressurized), then just throw them in the dumpster. Some of them were afraid to even mess with them and just let them pile up. I never gave it a second thought until a couple months ago when a coworker mentioned the tungsten had some recycling value. In a couple months time I've already made $540 off the first two batches, and have another batch almost ready to sell. The important point of that is don't limit yourself to waiting for affordable gold if there are other metals you have access to free or cheaply (like copper or silver) which you can sell. Then use the money to buy gold or gold scrap if that's your wish.

Sometimes you can buy things on Ebay at a good price that are not obviously valuable for recycling, so you are mainly competing with buyers looking at reselling or using the parts. As an example - I happened to find a good seller of "new old stock" leftover lots of components from electronic manufacturing. Auction lots can run anywhere from one chip or connector to thousands, or leftover automatic insertion reels containing hundreds or thousands of capacitors or resistors for example. The downside is a lot of the items are no longer made, and all you may have is a part number for which data can't be found on Google. Descriptions are pretty minimal, often just part numbers, manufacturer, and quantity. He never mentions gold recovery or recycling so I suppose that limits my competition too. I took a chance on some pins that looked like gold to me in the photo but found they weren't, so guesses aren't always good. He starts his auctions low and although shipping seems expensive for smaller lots, he allows up to a week or more of auctions to be combined. So although the first auction might cost $12 or $13 to ship UPS Ground, each auction added on only adds a couple more dollars of shipping. I just avoid the real small lots that aren't worth the cost plus extra shipping. In combined lots I've bought cheaply over 1000 modem chips made by Rockwell and Conexant (Rockwell's successor). Although they look like normal plastic PLCC package chips, I remembered they were made with a gold plated circuit board inside. I bought several hundred brand new in the box 96 pin Futurenet bus connectors. There was no gold visible in the photos but I knew they had to be gold plated inside the shell. I'm almost done pulling all the pins and will be faced with the choice of reselling the pins at a good profit or saving them to recover myself? I've also picked up several smaller lots of various new green BGA chips with the gold corner, looking similar to the motherboard bridge chips. They too have gold inside.
 
Real Auctions can be much better.
You have to do your research the day before,and wait around all day for the five or ten lot's you are interested in.
But the information on valuation and testing you can find here will give you quite an edge on most people bidding.
I always come away with some thing and have made a good return on occasion.
Unfortunately it means leaving my nice warm home spending the day interacting with quite impolite people.
At least there are no bears as some on this site have to contend with for there Au. :lol:
 
its-all-a-lie said:
pu_239 said:
it's 14k 3.70g gold ring, gold value is 48 dollars.
Click to expand...

I think your math might be off a little. The current spot price according to the ticker below is $1216 per ounce, making this ring worth close to $85.
Click to expand...

That's weird, i am pretty good at math. I guess i calculated it for 8k for some odd reason. But you're right. I used an online calculator, i think i had the setting at 8k, maybe i was looking t something before the ring that was 8k. Thanks for catching that.

I skimmed through some of the other posts, they seem good, but don't have time to reply in detail, so i'll come back, have my final tomorrow for math and tuesday for chem, thanks guys.
 
Here's a buy, today, from my Craigslist ad.

The necklace is 14k 10.98g Looks to be diamond cut.
Panda is 1/20 oz
Eagle is 1/10 oz

I paid $430 total. Originally offered $420, guy asked for $430. We did the majority of the deal over text. He didn't tell me about the bezels, though he mentioned they were gold, when we met. They are 14k. Total gold weight, counting bezels, 16.44g.
 

Attachments

  • Gold buy.jpg
    Gold buy.jpg
    4.5 MB · Views: 209
AndyWilliams said:
Here's a buy, today, from my Craigslist ad.

The necklace is 14k 10.98g Looks to be diamond cut.
Panda is 1/20 oz
Eagle is 1/10 oz

I paid $430 total. Originally offered $420, guy asked for $430. We did the majority of the deal over text. He didn't tell me about the bezels, though he mentioned they were gold, when we met. They are 14k. Total gold weight, counting bezels, 16.44g.
Click to expand...

Ill give you $450 and pay shipping costs up to $10. :lol:
 
pu_239 said:
it's 14k 3.70g gold ring, gold value is 48 dollars.
Click to expand...

At $1200 oz I figure value is $83.27

and that is if it is a true 14K, but most likely 12.5 to 13K
=====================
OOPs, I see someone else caught it before I did. I see it sold for just a bit over spot.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top