Most people have a good idea of what a pawn shop is, but there are subtle variations to the concept as a whole. This includes online pawn shops, specialty pawn shops, pawn shops that offer auto title loans, and more.

Which is right for you?

Here’s everything you should know about different pawn shop types.

Generalist Pawn Shops

When most people hear the term ‘pawn shop,’ they typically imagine a non-descript building with an assortment of items randomly strewn about on shelves or standing on their own along the floor. They can often feel a little cluttered, depending on the shop and how they run it. However, they can also inspire a bit of adventure in looking to see what hidden treasures wait to be found.

This is known as a generalist pawn shop. As the name implies, they sell a general assortment of items – ranging from expensive and deluxe, to average and unexciting. If you’re looking to browse for interesting items or household objects, a generalist pawn shop has you covered.

These pawn shops buy and sell items, as well as offer loans with items used as collateral. If the loan isn’t paid in time, the collateral is kept and sold.

Online Pawn Shops

Online pawn shops vary only slightly from the typical kind. They function similarly, but allow customers to conduct business from their homes. Whether it’s to sell or offer an item as collateral, the customer will ship the item and receive their payment or loan if the sale/loan is approved.

Items collected by these shops will then be showcased online to potential buyers, similar to any other e-commerce website. This allows for pawn shops to keep up with the online shift of retail and cut back on expenses (such as a store front). Buyers may also appreciate an easier way to browse through a pawn shop’s content.

Specialty Pawn Shops

Most pawn shops take any item as collateral for a loan, but, occasionally you’ll find pawn shops that have a specialty. Generally, the owner is an expert or they employ an expert in a certain field to verify the legitimacy of items.

This is often seen with jewelry. Why? Because it takes special tools and a trained eye to tell real from fake, or natural from synthetic.

You may also find the occasional gun, classic car, or antique pawn shop. These varieties are more popular in larger cities, which can support such specific pursuits.

Auto Title Loans

Pawn shops are very different from banks when it comes to passing out loans. Customers don’t need a credit score to secure a loan – just something to offer as collateral.

An auto title loan from a pawn shop is like taking out a second mortgage on a house, where you place your car up for collateral, but you can continue to own and use it.

This can be appealing to those without many valuable items. However, it has the downside of potentially losing your mode of transportation if you default on the loan.

Buying secondhand jewelry can be more interesting and fiscally responsible than buying new jewelry.

Though not a one-to-one comparison, it’s like buying a used car: the price of being new is marked up by the company and often not reflective of the actual value.

But there are more factors than just price when buying secondhand!

Are you in search of more bling? Then here are other great reasons to check out antique stores, pawn shops, or jewelry stores that sell secondhand.

A Better Deal

There’s this prevalent idea in modern culture that the value of jewelry is reflected in its price. So, obviously, if the jewelry is cheap, then the quality is poor. Right?

Not true! Buying secondhand jewelry from a pawn shop, thrift store, garage sale, or other kind of secondhand seller shouldn’t be viewed as a lesser way of purchasing jewelry.

Because they’re older (and sometimes less desired than certain modern designs), the price gets significantly marked down. A similar item at a jewelry store could be much cheaper at a pawn shop. If you’re looking for a wedding ring, a gift, or something for yourself, a good piece of jewelry doesn’t have to break the bank.

Sustainable and Ecofriendly

Not all jewelry can be or should be melted down and recycled into new jewelry. Because it’s made with precious and semi-precious resources, it can last quite a while and will end up in a store to be sold again.

Buying these older pieces (instead of putting in the energy and resources to melt them down to make something new) is much more environmentally friendly for the world-conscientious consumer.

Additionally, buying secondhand jewelry allows someone to buy jewelry without supporting the companies that strip-mine or provide poor working conditions for miners, like the mining of “blood diamonds.”

Though there’s a chance that a piece bought secondhand was made by a company that dealt in these practices, they don’t get a cut of the sale when resold. So, you wouldn’t be actively supporting them.

Older Styles

Jewelry goes through fashion cycles, just like clothes and hair styles do. This means that certain a style of jewelry can go out of fashion in jewelry stores. To find something a little more unique or not currently available in stores, buying secondhand increases the variety of pieces to choose from.

Additionally, many of these older pieces bring with them this aura of history, depending on how old they are.

Antique Pieces

Another term for secondhand (depending on age and perhaps a few other arbitrary factors) can be “antique.” Antique can describe your grandmother’s wedding ring or a locket found in a trunk dating back to the American Civil War.

Not all antique pieces need history to them, though it can be romantic and fun to know the history of a piece that has traveled the years. It’s maybe been around longer than you have! This added value can make a wedding ring or congratulatory set of earrings all the more meaningful.

If you’re in the market for a pawn shop, it can help to take time out of your day to research the places you’re interested in. This helps avoid bad deals and negative experiences.

Whether this is your first time using a pawn shop or, as a frequent shopper, you want to take another look at their local pawn shops, anyone can benefit from a few simple methods of vetting these businesses.

Here are the best strategies:

Online Reviews

Online reviews can be a helpful tool in figuring out which pawn shops are best.

Reviews often swing towards the negative, as most people will only leave a review if something has bothered or offended them, so these should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, an abundance of positive reviews can provide a good look at the pawn shop. After all, it must’ve been a very positive experience if people were inspired to review.

To be extra sure the reviews are authentic, go ahead and check out the accounts that have posted them. If the account has multiple reviews posted across businesses in the area, then you can trust they have a good understanding of what’s quality and sub-quality in the community. If they have only one review, the experience was likely exceptional enough to warrant their time. If they post scarcely and in different writing styles, you may have cause for concern.

Look for a Website or Social Media Presence

Not all pawn shops will have a personal website. However, most will have an online presence besides a Yelp page, whether it’s their own website or a social media presence on Facebook or Twitter. How they interact with people online can be a telling sign of how they operate their business. For example, are they willing to compromise in order to see you walk away happy?

Avoid pawn shops that fight with their customers online about their experiences. You don’t want to deal with a business that makes you feel bad about having a poor experience, or who is unwilling to give ground in order to satisfy the customer.

Call the Pawn Shop

Though it’s a little unconventional, you can always call ahead and speak with the employees to see if they’re up to your standards. Ask them questions about their business and how to go about selling, buying, or pawning an item for a loan. If you have plans to sell or pawn objects, ask what you need to bring or what additional information they want about the item. If you’re trying to buy something, ask as many questions about the item as possible.

If they’re willing to help you out, then they want your business and are typically willing to give you a good deal. This is a sign of a quality pawn shop: one that wants your business, wants you to walk away happy, and wants you to return with more business. Anything less should make you second-guess visiting their location.

Should you clean and polish your jewelry before selling it?

The simple answer is yes. This practice is similar to cleaning your house or decorating it nicely to show off to potential buyers. People want to see its best form prior to buying it. In the case of pawning off jewelry, doing the grunt work yourself and presenting your valuables in their best condition may help you get a better deal.

However, it’s not always the best choice. Depending on what the jewelry is made of, how old it is, and if you’re unsure of how to properly clean it, you may need to leave it to the experts. A professional clean might cost extra, but that can pay for itself by avoiding damage to your jewelry and receiving a better price when you sell it.

How can you tell the difference? What is the best way to clean your jewelry? Let’s take a look.

Jewelry Cleaning Basics

While it can’t replace a professional cleaning, there are some ways to clean your jewelry at home.

Gold

Pure gold doesn’t tarnish, but most gold jewelry isn’t pure gold due to its soft and bendable nature. The other metals that gold is mixed with to become stronger do tarnish, like copper, silver, and iron. The lower karat of gold the jewelry is, the more likely it is to darken with tarnish from the other elements in its alloy.

Silver

Silver is known to tarnish, which is why silver polish is easily accessible! Some polishes come in kits with wipes and/or soft cloths. Be sure to research any polish before you buy it, checking the user reviews and seeing if they accomplish what they promise.

Though you can clean silver at home without manually polishing, this should only be done if you know what you’re doing and have performed extensive research into the process of performing a DIY polish. With added or extra steps, beyond using a tried and true polish, you’re at greater risk of messing something up. This is extra important if your silver jewelry contains gemstones.

Gemstones

For most gemstones, you need only wash them with warm, soapy water and then clean with a soft, bristled toothbrush or a fine, soft cloth.

Take care to be gentle around the areas where the gemstone connects to the ring, necklace, or other form of jewelry. The prongs holding it in place may become damaged if brushed too thoroughly.

Organic Gemstones

For organic gems like peals and amber, it’s recommended you do not use water or soap to clean them. Instead, use a soft cloth (a microfiber cloth is preferred) to wipe away any dirt or dust.

If you want to polish the jewelry around the organic gemstone, it’s best to take it to a professional. You need to prevent the organic gemstone from coming into contact with any soapy water or polish, so that detailed form of work is best handled by expert hands.

What does it mean to have a ten karat gold ring or a pair of seven karat gold earrings? Why is twenty-four the maximum number of karats anyone can have?

It all has to do with alloys, a chemical blend of different elements.

Gold isn’t strong enough to function as jewelry on its own. The softness of gold plays into the old act of biting coins to see if they’d bend, as most other metals aren’t soft enough when a moderate amount of force is applied. To make up for that, most (if not all) gold jewelry is a blend of other metals – which is called an alloy.

So, what does that mean for karats? Let’s dive in.

Alloys and Their Karats

Yellow Gold

Yellow gold often has few other elements in the alloy, allowing the color from the gold to shine on its own without diluting it too much. As a result, a stronger yellow color is likely to yield a higher karat.

White Gold

White gold is an alloy mixed more often with silver, though sometimes you’ll find percentages of nickel, zinc, palladium, and/or platinum.

Rose Gold

Rose gold is commonly made using copper and other stronger metals, like silver or platinum, as copper is also a relatively soft metal.

Pure Gold

Pure gold is not an alloy, but rarely is even twenty-four karat gold “pure” on a chemical level. For those that own twenty-four karat gold jewelry, there will be minute traces of other elements that are unavoidable and extremely difficult to remove. Because they are such low percentages, often less than a percent or two, it is the purest gold that is possible.

Karats and Gold Purity

Understanding alloys provides what you need to understand karats. The purity of gold is measured on a scale up to twenty-four. This refers specifically to how many parts of the composition is gold. For instance, a twelve karat gold ring is twelve parts gold; the remaining twelve parts are a combination of silver, platinum, copper, zinc, and so on.

The Twenty-Four Karat System

But why is the method of counting karats on a scale of twenty-four instead of twenty-five (which is more easily divisible in a percentage system)?

Though the origin of the karat concept is open to historical interpretation, the use of the twenty-four system allows for naturally occurring impurities. In short, there’s more leeway, as each karat now represents slightly more than a twenty-five system would have.

Karat Engraving

Most rings will have an engraving on the inside to represent the metal’s quality. Often, you’ll find it notated with a number from one to twenty-four (though you’ll rarely see a twenty-four karat ring) and a “K” or “KT.” For example, a twelve karat ring may be marked “12K.”

However, not all jewelry will be marked. Earrings, for example, are typically smaller, so engraving the metal would either result in a too-small mark or damage to the jewelry. To understand the karat value, you’d have to seek a professional assessment.

Though gold is always more valuable per ounce than silver, occasionally, silver is the better option. Why?

Mainly, because it’s cheaper. Not everything that could use gold needs to use gold, when something similar and less expensive can do the job.

What are other cases where silver beats gold?

Strength

Silver is so strong that, sometimes, gold needs silver mixed in to make it able to withstand use. As an anti-bacterial metal, it’s often used over other metals to create gold alloys.

Silver is also used to solder and braze other metals, providing them with stable and firm joints in a variety of settings, from electronics to jewelry.

Silver can further be used simply to match the color or metal of the object being soldered. However, its strength always provides the additional benefit of stability.

Jewelry

Besides being a personal preference of color, silver is extremely popular in jewelry for its relative cheapness as a precious metal. This makes it easier for those with metal allergies, or metal hypersensitivity, to wear relatively inexpensive jewelry, so long as what they buy is pure silver and not sterling silver, which is a silver alloy.

Likewise, silver won’t oxidize and turn skin green, nor will it cumulate bacteria that can cause infections. For those that get piercings, silver is a great alternative for a safe piercing that doesn’t break the bank.

Reflectivity

Once used in the construction of mirrors, due to its incredibly reflective nature, silver is now used in lining spacecrafts to protect inhabitants from the sun! Likewise, silver is often used in skyscrapers and other buildings to coat the windows and help them avoid heating up.

Silver functionally replaces the need for shade, as it reflects instead of absorbing heat or light. In space, unless you’re flying right behind a planet or other orbital body, you’re going to constantly be in view of the sun, which would heat you up continuously! This makes silver an absolute necessity under our harsh star.

Electronics

Gold is used in many electronics as a conductor, since gold does not tarnish. However, the electronic industry and the world’s gold supply couldn’t survive by only using gold!

Silver is also the world’s most conductive metal, making it a more efficient form of travel for electricity. Unfortunately, silver tarnish can affect the overall conductive nature of the metal and would need constant upkeep, but, with a bit of maintenance every now and then, it can still perform at its best.

Investments

You often hear of people buying gold or silver coins as investments against economic collapse. Another tactic is trying to play the market by buying at their lowest and cashing in when the price peaks.

Whatever the reason, many prefer to buy silver coins over gold bullions, as they are much, much more affordable and require less money to start developing a collection. People can buy small sets of silver coins when they feel they can afford them, as opposed to shaving off a bit of gold every now and then.

Whether you’re going to shop or to pawn off an item for a loan, it’s good practice to know how to identify quality pawnshops from the bad.

But what makes a quality pawnshop?

Often, it has to do with integrity, a keen eye, and customer service. After all, a good pawnshop is one that inspires trust, knows what they’re doing, and wants to maintain a lasting and positive relationship with their customers.

Quality Assurance

A good pawnshop researches the items brought to them, whether it’s for a loan or to outright sell it.

A poor pawnshop may take any electronic offered to sell it at a discount, whether or not it works. This can be frustrating for people that come in and expect to buy items that actually work.

Being able to go in and trust the items you buy is crucial. As such, their quality assurance is a good sign that the pawnshop knows what they’re doing and is going to provide a fair deal.

Customer Service

If a pawnshop knows they’re going to rip someone off, they often don’t care too much about the people that come in to buy, sell, or take out a loan. Keep an eye on their customer service and see how invested they are in making sure you walk away with a positive experience. This can range from how they greet you as you enter and how willing they are to walk you through each step of the process.

Quality shops will make people feel safe and welcome when they’re either pawning off their own possessions or looking for something to buy. It’s a business’s way of telling customers that they care about your experience and want it to be a positive one.

If you walk into a pawnshop and no one greats you, or they’re trying to rush you along, don’t be afraid to back out of a deal and try the next one!

Online Reviews

The best way to tell if a pawnshop is of any quality is to take to the internet! Though you can’t always believe what you read online, reviews are excellent for getting an idea of a business and how they operate.

Take reviews with a grain of salt, however, as people are more likely to review a business if they’ve had a negative experience than if they’ve had a positive one. If a pawnshop has just as many positive reviews as negative ones, it’s likely that more people have walked away with a positive experience.

If a pawnshop only has negative reviews, see how many reviews there are in total. Only a couple? Probably no need to worry, especially if the dates are spaced out. If it’s a lot, then they have a consistent set of problems that have gone unaddressed.

Lastly, trust your gut when reading reviews. If you find that a review is reasonably steering you clear of a bad situation, you’re under no obligation to give the pawnshop a chance.

Parting with your gold is hard enough without worrying about if it’s the right time to sell it.

Does the value of gold change? Do you benefit the most from selling it now or should it be saved for a rainy day? Whether you have a few gold coins or a couple pieces of jewelry, you’ll want to try to get the best exchange rate you can.

Here’s how to know.

The Value of Gold

Gold is a precious resource used in all sorts of things, from jewelry to medical implants to electronics, making it a well sought after metal. Because of this, the price of gold stays relatively stable. The market for gold will rarely “crash,” so it’s a safe investment against non-backed currency.

In the United States, we don’t have gold or silver backed currency, meaning that the value of the dollar is at more risk of inflation and depreciation in the global economy. People that are worried about such things are likely to invest in gold as a safety net, in the case of an economic downslide or crash.

Fluctuations in Gold Prices

The price of gold is against a whole bullion, or about 27.4 pounds.

As of September 8^th, 2019, the price of gold comes in at $1,508.59. Most people selling gold aren’t selling whole bullions, so the few dollars of change in the price on a day to day basis isn’t going to make a huge impact.

You’ll mainly want to keep an eye out for major dips in the value, ranging in the hundreds. Keep an eye on the price of gold on websites like JM Bullion, which keep track of the daily values of bullions, not just gold!

When You’ll Need to Cash Gold

Economic downturns with high inflation on the dollar are the best time to cash in your gold, but it’s not the only time.

Even if the national or global economy is doing well, that doesn’t always mean you wouldn’t benefit from selling gold to get you through a rough time or to invest it in something else -maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity.

This also depends on how you came across your gold. Not everyone that trades their gold for cash bought gold coins to invest against economic downturns. Most people simply have gold jewelry or watches they no longer use, or the value of the piece is more important than having it anymore.

Regardless, it may sometimes be better to hold out for a better price, if you’re not in dire need of emergency funds.

How Will You Know It’s the Right Time?

It’s rare you’ll ever find a time in which you’re absolutely sure that “now” is the objectively best time to sell your gold.

Cashing in any investment or selling your personal items is always going to be a risk. Your best shot is to watch the price of gold and hope you’re able to sell at a peak price, when you need the cash the most.

You have a gold ring, a watch, a pair of earrings, or some necklace that was presented as a gift. As special as the act of gift giving can be, sometimes you just want to know what quality of gold you possess, whether it’s a simple curiosity or if you’re planning on pawning off items you never plan to wear again.

Can you tell the purity of gold from the comfort of your own home, or do you have to take it to a specialist to find out?

Understanding Gold

It’s extremely rare to find out you own a completely pure piece of gold. If you have it, you likely know due to its expensive and breakable nature.

Gold is naturally a soft material, which is why it has such a long history of being made into small, wearable items. Even basic tools can bend and piece together gold. As a result, it often needs to be mixed with another metal to keep it solid and stable.

Karats

Different from carats, which are the measurement of quality for diamonds, a karat is a unit of measuring the purity of gold. Gold is defined on a scale of one to twenty-four, with twenty-four karats representing absolute pure gold. The higher the karat is, the higher percentage of gold. As gold gives off a distinctly yellow color, you can tell how pure yours is by the color.

Alloys

An alloy is a combination of two different metals. For gold jewelry, you’ll find a variety of different gold “colors,” which are actually just alloys with differing percentages of gold to the added material.

This is often done to gold, as it is a soft metal that needs a bit of reinforcement to avoid dents, bending, or breaking. It’s also done to help lower or to change the color for aesthetic purposes.

• White gold is often an alloy made with silver, nickel, or palladium.
• Yellow gold is often a “stronger” version of white gold, with a higher percentage of gold in the alloy.
• Rose gold (sometimes called pink or red gold) is made primarily with copper; though it’ll often contain a small percentage of silver, as copper is also a soft metal.

The more gold is in the alloy, the stronger the yellow color will be. Any rose gold or white gold is going to be a lower karat.

A Keen Eye

It’s difficult to tell the karat on your own at home, but you can attempt to figure out the general range of purity by sight.

Don’t use online photos of gold to compare your gold’s color to. It’s best to find another example you can see side by side. This is especially helpful if you know the karat of the item you’ll compare it to.

For example, if you know your ring is 12 karat gold, you could reasonably assume that your watch is of a higher percentage of gold if it looks more yellow than the ring. It may not be perfect, but it’s a great place to start if you’re curious!

Gold is most often found as jewelry and currency, especially since its rarity throughout human history had made it something to be desired and easily controlled.

However, there are a few surprising uses for gold, beyond looking pretty. Could it be “the most useful metal”, even in this modern industrial age? And does that make it more valuable to you than before?

The practice of gold buying may typically involve gold coins and jewelry, due to the amount of gold and the ease of refining it. Nonetheless, here are other places you can find it:

Electronics

Gold has been well-used in electronic devices, since it’s a great conductor of electricity and soft to manipulate. It also resists tarnish very well, making it ideal for electronics that work in low voltages and are susceptible to rust, which can disrupt the flow of electricity.

Most modern cell phones contain about fifty cents worth of gold in them!

Small amounts of gold can also be found in calculators, GPS units, televisions, and computers. The amount of gold found in these devices, however, is hardly worth the money if someone was trying to sell gold for a quick buck.

Even still, it’s good to know about the treasure inside your electronics, so you remember to recycle! Gold is a very useful and finite metal; it’s wise to keep even the small amounts in circulation.

Medicine

Does gold have medicinal benefits? How can that be right?

While it’s true that eating gold is meaningless (and kind of excessive), this precious mineral does have a place in our healthcare!

For example, gold crowns and caps in dental care! A practice used for over 4,000 years, dentists often mix gold with other minerals to create a stronger, more cost-effective crown for your teeth. Gold is also used in stents, pacemakers, and other kinds of implants, as the human body is less prone to rejecting this metal.

Don’t get any exciting ideas, though; selling gold found in a body is typically frowned upon, even if the body is given to science. Mostly, it’s too much work to extract the gold – but some people just find it distasteful.

Art

Gold jewelry can be considered a form of art, but not all art is wearable!

Gold has been used in art across various mediums, including paint, sculptures and even architecture. Most of these use gold film or leaf, as opposed to creating something entirely out of gold. After all, a solid-gold ring is spendy – but nothing like a solid gold statue, even a small one!

Even still, gold film or leaf was still expensive. So, art using gold meant the artist had a wealthy patron or religious institution serving as the gold buyers backing them.

What To Do With Gold

The best place to sell gold depends on the amount of gold you have.

A painting with gold leaf may find its place at an art gallery. However, an electronic device or component with a higher amount of gold than normal may be best suited to a pawnshop.

When considering where to sell gold, keep in mind: places that say “we buy gold” will most likely pass up on buying the small amount of gold in your smartphone, especially since most of the phone’s value is not the gold.