Save My San Diego Pawn Shop

The Macon County News has just reported on a situation that concerns pawn shops in every state and the people these pawn shops serve. What is causing all the concern, and indeed anger, is U.S. Senate Bill 500, which would virtually wipe out the pawn business. Read more

Getting Rid of Pawn Shop Stereotypes

Throughout San Diego county and in cities around the country, many people have negative perceptions of pawn shops. In Illinois, The Daily Northwestern reports that Windy City Jewelry & Loan Ltd. is tired of the stereotypes and is working its hardest to defy them. In their article the newspaper talks with the store’s manager Bruno Wilson. Unlike the image people often have in their heads, Wilson’s shop is clean and neat, and no one can enter without first being buzzed in by an attendant. Read more

California Gold Scams On The Rise

John Asbury for The Press-Enterprise of Riverside writes that gold scams are on the rise in California. Asbury gives one example of how a a woman was approached to buy a gold bar outside a Southern California Wal-Mart, she thought she was getting a bargain. Instead, she ended up with a polished hunk of metal. Read more

Beverly Hills Pawn Shop Sees Surge

This year business is up for California pawn shop owners, an indication of how much tougher this season has become for some. According to the LA Times, Collateral Lender (a well-known Beverly Hills pawn shop) has seen a 20% surge in customers over the last three months or about the same period the stock market tanked. Read more

Your Confidentiality & Security

With increased business being conducted by buyers and loan providers of gold, jewelry, diamonds, and watches, consumer concerns have been raised regarding personal confidentiality, as well as public security. In response to these concerns, and to clear up any potential confusion, we at the San Diego Luxury Pawn Shop Report thought it would be good if we laid down the kinds of security and confidentiality polices that your jewelry buyer or pawn shop should have in place. Read more

Top 5 Tips: Selling Used Silver Flatware

Here are your top 5 tips to remember before selling your silver flatware in San Diego.

1) Identify whether it actually is made of sterling silver, and not just silver plated. If it is genuine sterling silver flatware, the word “sterling” will be on the flatware. That is, unless it is an antique manufactured prior to 1860. Read more

How San Diego Pawn Shops Work

Featured at the website HowStuffWorks.com is a good article about How Pawn Shops Work. The article rightly points out that pawn shops don’t really deserve the “shady” image that many people hold of them–often due to the way Hollywood depicts them as fence operations for stolen goods. For centuries, pawn shops have been the quick and convenient way for people to borrow money. Read more

California Pawn Shops Increase Business

According to a recent report by Bloomberg, California pawn shops have seen a dramatic increase in business over the past several months. The CEO of Beverly Loan (sitting in an office strewn with 18k gold bracelets, Rolexes, diamonds, and other luxury items worth thousands of dollars) is quoted as saying, not surprisingly, that business is booming. Read more

Look for Colored Diamonds at San Diego Pawn Shops

According to a recent article in Forbes, the poor economic outlook is causing many people to invest in tangible goods like jewelry and diamonds. They cite a recent auction conducted by Chicago auctioneers Leslie Hindman, which attracted buyers from around the world and sparked bidding wars on several items that ended up being sold for around $100,000. Also mentioned was Sotheby’s recent September jewelry auction which broke all expectations—and included items from Van Cleef & Arpels and Harry Winston which sold for more than double their pre-sale valuations.

According to the article, what really is becoming popular are colored diamonds. These diamonds are much more rare that colorless diamonds. How rare? Well the ratio of one carat colored diamonds to one carat colorless diamonds is 1 in 100,000. It is because of this rarity that high quality colored diamonds are said to double in value around every 4 years! Thus it is no surprise why diamond buyers seek them out.

That’s something to keep in mind if you come across some fine quality jewelry set with colored diamonds at an area San Diego pawn shop. After all, if you have money to invest, why not put it into something that you can wear and enjoy every day?

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Of course, diamonds and diamond jewelry are not the only things to be looking for in San Diego pawn shops. Gold coins and gold bars are also items to keep an eye out for. Read more: Buying and Selling Gold Bullion Coins at Pawn Shops.

Buying & Selling Gold Bullion Coins at San Diego Pawn Shops

If you ever come across some gold bullion coins at a San Diego pawn shop and are considering buying them, there are a few things that you should keep in mind:

Remember that gold prices fluctuate all the time, sometimes quite dramatically. So be sure to check the current day’s spot price. What is gold’s spot price? That’s the current market price for the precious metal. In contrast, a gold bullion coin’s “melt value” refers the value of the coin if it is melted down and sold.

If you plan on buying a fractional gold bullion coin (that is, a coin weighing less than one ounce) you can expect to pay a higher percentage over melt value than if you were buying a one ounce coin.

The folks at the Professional Numismatists Guild say that the average retail commission that a seller charges is 5-6%. So if it seems like the pawn shop from which you are thinking about buying a gold bullion coin is charging a higher commission than that, you can likely get a better deal elsewhere

Lastly, as a general rule of thumb, remember that Kruggerrand bullion coins are usually sold for less than the American Eagle and Canadian Maple Leaf bullion coins.

If you are really keen on buying gold bullion coins, your best bet may be to look up a San Diego ANA (American Numismatic Association) bullion dealer by clicking here.

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People in San Diego often ask us just what the history of pawn shops is, where and how the whole business got started. For the curious, SDJB has now written: A Brief History of Pawn Shops.

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