I ditched my gold via Cash4Gold, which straight up looks like a mistake as I type it. I naively assumed they'd offer me something in the ballpark of the spot price; thinking they make their profit selling back at retail. I suspected I would get more selling on eBay (though I've never tried it - perhaps that would be a nice little experiment), but wanted to forgo the effort, so just went with the top of the search engine easiest option. I'm too lazy. A grand don't come for free as they say.
Anyway, the guy originally offered me around £650 - this is for an amount of gold worth closer to £1100 at the current spot price. I refused it. He then offered £824, with the old, "C'mon, what were you expecting, I have to make a profit!" Reluctantly, I accepted. You have to wonder what these guys are giving the little old ladies and single mothers selling their unwanted jewellery.
Again, if I wasn't so lazy, I could've just went to a local pawn broker to see what the standard offer would be. So I only have myself to blame for my country-bumpkin, farm-boy-in-the-city style naivety lol. The journey from buying to selling has been a good education though. When you start buying you quickly realise you're paying a big retail premium over the spot price. That's excluding postage (and VAT if you're buying silver in the UK). Then when you sell you realise you're selling back at a big discount.
I'm sure you can actually sell for a fair price if you put more effort in than me, but again there are practical costs and issues. Sending expensive items through the post. Having the certainty that the person receiving the item has actually received it - it could get stolen, or they could receive it and say they haven't, then refuse to pay. Meaning you'd have to pay to post it in a way that requires a signature, and pay to insure it. Added to this you have the time and effort it takes to list something for sale and deal with the enquiries. In the end I've made about £100 profit - largely, if not wholly, through luck. I could've made that by doing an extra shift at work.
So, all in all, I'd have to say my experiment in buying precious metals hasn't really worked out. Even with such a mega increase in the gold price.
Would I buy gold again?
I think if I ever buy gold with a view to making profit (or just outstripping inflation) I'll probably buy paper gold, dare I say it.* That's speaking as a pleb who's trying to make/save enough money to pay for a deposit on a house at some point, not as a wealthy person trying to protect that wealth.
If I do buy more physical metal I think it'll be silver, and I wouldn't be buying it with a view to making profit or even breaking even. I'll more be buying it as a nice little gift to myself - a gift that has the added luxury of retaining value and acting as a safety net if you ever do need money.
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*This also adds an interesting addendum to the last post about gold standards. The difference between the paper (or digital) representation of gold and the gold itself. The physical gold needs to be stored/transported/secured/audited/insured. Which add extra real world costs. Meaning the two things can't ever truly be the same. Though one may stand in lieu of the other.
(Incidentally, I'm using Dezgo to generate these images. The one above was generated from a prompt asking for a 'richly coloured Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting showing lots of gold coins.' I quite like it, odd though it is.
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