APR 07, 2012 2:50 PM

Selling Gold For Cash

If you are considering selling gold for cash then make sure you visit at least 3 different pawn shops so you can compare and get the best price for your old jewellery because as a recent investigation by the Croydon Advertiser found, prices can differ alarmingly even when the pawnbrokers are all situated on the same street!

They took a selection of 9 carat gold jewellery weighing in at 37 grams to a selection of London pawnbrokers in West Croydon under the pretence of wanting to sell it and found the difference between the lowest written quote they received and the best price offered was a staggering £131.

The Albemarle and Bond pawnbrokers came out worst with an offer of £239 – that’s just £6.20 a gram while the H Purchens pawnbrokers on London Road offered £370 – a full £10 per gram. 9 carat gold was trading at £12.45 on the day they visited all the various pawn shops in Croydon buying and selling gold.

Cash Converters recently got some bad publicity for cashing in on Britain’s hard times by offering sellers half the amount they were then selling the goods for but the Croydon branch faired much better here and matched the best offer of £370. The full list of pawnbrokers visited last Friday and the prices they offered for gold is as follows:

H Purchens Pawnbrokers, London Road, West Croydon: £370
Cash Converters, London Road, West Croydon: £370
The Money Shop, London Road, West Croydon: £360
Croydon Gold Buyer, Derby Road, West Croydon: £360
Sasa Jewellery, Whitgift Centre: £360
Captain Cash, Central Parade, New Addington: £330
H & T Pawnbrokers, Central Parade, New Addington: £290
Albemarle Bond, London Road, West Croydon: £239

It’s worth noting that Albermarle and Bond is directly opposite H Purchens which would seem to imply that people do not shop around when selling gold otherwise you would expect the prices to be much closer.

Other gold prices they were quoted included £330 from Captain Cash in Central Parade, West Croydon while H and T Pawnbrokers on the same street offered £40 less.

Once they had all their quotes in the Advertiser went back to Albermarle and Bond to give them a chance to explain why their cash for gold offer was currently half the scrap value of bullion but they declined to comment.

Not so Robert Diggins, the manager at H Purchens in London Road who for obvious reasons was delighted to discover his shop was the place to go for people selling gold for cash in Croydon.

“We do make a profit on the gold we buy, but it’s just very small, whereas other places will be making a lot more money but in my opinion ripping the public off. I personally would feel uncomfortable trying to make a lot of money out of people that are trying to make some extra cash, especially in these tough times. The fact that we are buying more gold then selling gold shows how hard things are right now, so we want to be fair,” he told The Advertiser.

The Institute of Registered Valuers have long recommended anyone selling their unwanted jewellery should shop around rather than take the first offer made and as the above shows, even crossing the road or nipping next door for a second opinion can make a huge difference in the amount you can raise when selling gold for cash.