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Business & Tech

UPDATE: The Power of Gold Generates Business in Walnut Creek

With the escalating price of gold, more businesses in Walnut Creek are looking to buy from customers.

UPDATE: We add  to a helpful article from Castro Valley Patch naming five things you should know about selling gold.

 

With gold shooting past the $1,700 per troy ounce (31.1 grams) mark for the first time in history, many businesses in Walnut Creek are attracting individuals looking to cash in.

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Jewelry stores are beginning to give customers money for their gold items. Newer businesses have opened to take advantage.

George Cervera, owner of Like New, a jewelry repair store in downtown Walnut Creek, has been buying gold from customers since he began his business more than 20 years ago. In the past four years, he has witnessed an increase in customers looking to sell gold.

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“There are a lot of people selling gold,” said Cervera. “The customers are getting wiser and wiser in the sense that they just don’t go to one place and sell the gold. They ask prices from all of the places and compare it. So you have to compete a lot.”

We Buy Gold and Cash for Gold Store opened up in Walnut Creek in the past year to address the growing gold market.

Fueled by the anxiety of the global economy, prices of gold have shot up in a short period of time. According to a graph from the New York Times, the price of gold has increased by more than 45 percent since Aug. 9 of last year.  

At the Super Silver shop in Broadway Plaza, owner Robert Truhitte has been buying back gold for the past half-year because of interest from customers.

“Gold is so high right now that people are bringing in broken chains, broken earrings, broken rings — I mean anything,” said Truhitte who opened up the Silver Shop last August. “They can’t do anything with it, it’s destroyed or gone or what not. Because the price is so high … they are getting a lot of money for it."

The high reward for gold also creates opportunities for scams.

“Many places, it is a kind of mysterious type of business,” said Cervera. “They grab the gold, go into the back door and then they come back and say, ‘We can pay you this much.’ Here it is just open.”

There are different ways to check for fraudulent gold. An acid-based test is used to check for the quality of the gold items. After the gold is tested, it is weighed separately by its purity and the customers are given an estimated price.

“Some people are selling because they need to pay the house (payments), or they need to pay tuition,” said Cervera. “They are desperate. It doesn’t matter the price. Some people, they don’t use the pieces, they have been there for 20 years so they are just (trying) to get the best they can. Some people want to go on a trip. So there are a lot of different types of motivations.”

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