Local recyclers offer an interesting way to earn a buck
No doubt you’ve seen those ads on TV and on the Internet,
telling you how much money you can make from selling your unwanted
gold jewelry and such.
”
Cash for gold!
”
they cry.
”
Get the most for your scrap gold!
”
Local recyclers offer an interesting way to earn a buck
No doubt you’ve seen those ads on TV and on the Internet, telling you how much money you can make from selling your unwanted gold jewelry and such. “Cash for gold!” they cry. “Get the most for your scrap gold!”
There are places you can go to sell gold and other precious metals, and there are even one-day events you can go to, at hotels and convention center. Or, if you prefer, you can mail your gold somewhere in a prepaid envelope and wait to see what you get back.
Gold is a hot topic these days because gold prices are high, and a lot of us need cash.
That’s why when my friend Carol asked me to come to her gold party, I was intrigued.
Instead of going to a strange shop to sell gold, I could instead go to my friend’s home, enjoy hors d’oeuvres and wine, and have fun while selling gold and silver that I didn’t want and didn’t need.
Kind of like a Tupperware party, only with the potential for making money, rather than spending it.
Talk about a great concept.
So a few weeks ago, I went through my jewelry boxes and found stuff. Now I don’t think of myself as having a lot of jewelry, really. I don’t usually wear much except for earrings. But I was amazed to find I had a lot of jewelry that I had just plain forgotten about.
There were rings and necklaces that had been Christmas or birthday presents that I never liked. There were broken pieces of jewelry, long put aside and neglected. There was the gold chain that I bought myself one summer when I went to Hawaii, but then gold chains went out of style for a while, and it got stuck in the bottom of a box.
And there were still other items that had somehow made their way into my jewelry boxes that I wasn’t quite sure about. There were some gold-looking chains – real gold or not? There were some earrings that looked like silver – were they or weren’t they?
I threw it all in an envelope, figuring that the gold buyers would be able to figure it out.
As it turned out, a lot of it was worth something, to my surprise.
It turns out that these gold parties are the brainchild of Trinie Martin Recycling in San Juan Bautista. Although the company has been around for years, the parties are a recent innovation, and a very popular one.
There at my friend’s party were Maria Goularte and Kim Vera, who were testing, weighing and in some cases, tearing apart items to get at the precious metals. For one woman at the party, Maria wrestled all the little diamonds out of a ring so the woman could keep them. (The company is only interested in the metals, not the gems.)
Maria told me that they are keeping very busy with the parties, and are going as far away as Turlock to do them. Everyone seems a little short of money these days, and so a lot of people are interested.
And you do get cash on the spot. I turned in my broken and unwanted things, which turned out to be 14K gold, 10K gold and sterling silver; it turned out to be worth more money than I thought it would be.
Not only that, it was a nice party. I saw a few old friends that I hadn’t seen in years, and made some new ones. I ate Carol’s wonderful food and drank some wine, which I don’t do too often. In addition to being a gold party, it was a lovely excuse to get together.
What was also quite intriguing for me was seeing what other people had brought to the party. One woman, a world traveler, had all kinds of wonderful necklaces from Egypt and Asia and other places; in the end, she decided not to part with them.
Several people brought items that they changed their minds about selling; I did the same thing at the last moment. And that was no problem at all for Maria and Kim, who are friendly and low-key. There’s no pressure to sell if you don’t want to.
It’s the latest wrinkle in the world of recycling. And certainly a lot more fun than sending an envelope somewhere.
