http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/a...o-secure-high-gold-prices-20110717-1hjr9.html Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/a...gold-prices-20110717-1hjr9.html#ixzz1SQ4GySvi That last comment was interesting.
I agree, rather sad if some of the pieces had historical significance or were early examples of australian art.
Thats not surprising to me. I often attend Estate and Liquidation jewellery auctions here in Brisbane, and its unbelievable. It's more of a case of 'how low can we drop this' rather than a tradtional auction market. I've picked up heaps of really nice items, at way under spot in the past, and honestly, nothing is changing... Very sad that beautiful historic pieces of jewellery are being melted by refiners and their subsidaries, but hey, thats business.
So this is an Australia with thing... Would be interesting to see if this is global, and whether it has an effect on supply/demand fundamentals.
So stop offering 60% less than spot and maybe people will start selling their pieces as jewellery rather than scrap metal.
You'd think that antique dealers would be knocking at Perth mints doors offering them spot for all the jewelry they received. Win for both parties, PM get to sell gold at spot without the hassle of refining and the dealers get to buy jewelry at metal cost with free embedded labour. Chuck on a modest retail margin and the dealers could sell antique gold jewelry at prices that would undercut the new gold chains that sell at double spot price because labor is expensive these days. Or they could just keep crying a river.
