Andre’s Fine Jewelers has been buying gold for many years. The late-2005 rise in gold prices catapulted Andre’s Fine Jewelers to the top spot when it comes to selling gold and silver. As prices continued to soar, many people realized they could unlock the hidden value in their jewelry, especially by selecting pieces that they inherited, have gone out of style, or that they simply don’t wear anymore. Andre’s Fine Jewelers offers you the highest prices paid for gold or diamond jewelry in Michigan. The selling process is quite simple. Gold and silver jewelry is tested for purity in front of you and then weighed in front of you. If you are selling diamond jewelry, appraisals for diamonds over one carat are helpful, but not required. We will grade the diamond in front of you.
Our Process
First, bring your gold, silver, gold coins, gold bullion, silver coins, silver bullion, jewelry, diamonds or luxury watches to our store located in beautiful downtown Brighton Michigan. You do not need an appointment, we work on a first come first serve basis. For gold & silver, we will weigh and test every item you have for the exact amount of gold or silver content. We weigh all of your items right in front of you so you can see the scale. We initially test your items with an acid scratch test. If we are in question about a particular item, we have a state of the art X-ray spectrometer which will tell us in about 30 seconds the exact amount of every metal in your item. We will then calculate the amount we will pay you based on the current prices that are always posted on our website. If the total amount we tell you is agreeable, we will write you a check.
What to look out for
While we are always checking our competition, we do a thorough survey of our competitors including having a secret shopper sell gold and silver to them and seeing not only how our competitors do business but what they are really paying. While we make sure we are always the highest payer, most of our competitors are doing business in a fair and honest way. However, we have found a few that have some disturbing practices that we want to make you aware of. This way if you decide to go someplace else or you are comparing us to others, you will know what to look out for.
Follow these simple steps to protect yourself from
dishonest stores using bait and switch tactics:
1. Never Sell to out-of-towners in a Hotel Room
Temporary gold buying setups in hotel rooms take advantage of "here today, gone tomorrow" tactics. They don't post their prices, so you have no idea of what they are paying you per gram. Since they are not a permanent part of the community, there is no way for the seller to check the buyer's reputation. These buyers may not even be in compliance with Michigan state regulations regarding gold buying. Honest buyers do not offer an extra percentage to certain groups - everyone should receive the most for what they sell.
2. Always Get A Price Quote First
Any honest gold buyer should be able to quote you a price by gram or pennyweight of what you will be paid for your gold. Even with a promising quote though, it's important to verify that the price you were quoted is the price you will be paid. Here are a few steps you can take to assure you are getting exactly what you were promised:
3. Grams vs Pennyweight Scam
This has been one of the worst of the bad practices we found. When an items like gold or silver is being quoted to you in grams, it needs to be weighed in grams. We have found that a few of our competitors are telling customers the price per gram that they will pay them, but they are weighing the item in pennyweights (DWT).
To understand what this means to you, you'll need to first understand the difference between a pennyweight and a gram. Both are used to determine how much something weighs, but use different units of measurement to do it (think Celsius vs Fahrenheit). There are 1.555 grams to the pennyweight. A pennyweight is another unit of measurement used mostly in the jewelry business. The example we show in the pictures below is of one pendant weighed in both grams and pennyweights. As you can see, the scale on the left is set to grams and shows a weight of 6.92 grams. The picture on the right shows the same scale with the same item on it but the scale is set to pennyweights, or DWT, and the amount is 4.55 pennyweights.
LEFT Measured in grams (g) RIGHT Measured pennyweight (DWT)
To help illustrate what this means to you, we will use the pendant pictured above as an example. In this example, there is a gold buyer who says they are paying $28.00 per Gram for 14k gold. You travel to the location (Never send your gold through the mail or an online service), they test your piece and place it on the scale. What we found is that the companies in question were weighing the items in pennyweights and saying it was grams. This means they would pay you based on the weight determined in pennyweights, 4.55 DWT, but paying you the price quoted in grams making your total $127.00. If they had weighed your pieces in grams, as quoted, your total would come out to $194.00. Thats a $67.00 difference 4.55 x 28.00, which comes to $127.00. Since the customer often does not know the exact weight, they think they were paid at $28/ gram when they were actually paid $18.35/gram.
There are some stores that do weigh your items in pennyweights but they tell you it is in pennyweights and pay you accordingly. The only issue we have with this is that sometimes the customer goes to multiple stores and gets prices in grams. The store that gives prices in pennyweights will say pennyweights but the customer does not really understand the difference. If Andre's price for the day is $28/gram, that is equivalent to $43.54/DWT (pennyweight). If another store says they are paying $29/DWT (pennyweight), it may sound to some that they are beating our price by $1 but in reality they are only paying $18.65/gram.
4.Pay Attention to the Process
Even after doing your research and finding the right place to sell your gold, it's important to make sure that they are paying what they advertise. Here are a few steps you can take to assure you are getting exactly what you were promised:
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- Make sure the scale is in plain view and that you can see the weight for yourself while your jewelry is on the scale.
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- Make sure that the scale is set to weigh in the unit of measurement you were quoted in.
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- Verify the math before you sell. Make sure you are being paid the price you were quoted.
- Verify the math before you sell. Make sure you are being paid the price you were quoted.
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- ie: If you called and were quoted a price of $22.00 per gram, then 36 grams of gold at that price would be $792.00 ($22.00 x 36 grams = $792.00).
- ie: If you called and were quoted a price of $22.00 per gram, then 36 grams of gold at that price would be $792.00 ($22.00 x 36 grams = $792.00).