The Times

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6207435.ece

Gold jewellery sold from suburban homes to beat the crunch

Will Pavia
May 2, 2009

At a well-appointed lounge in Surrey a number of equally well-furnished ladies will gather this month for wine, conversation and a chance to sell their gold. The “gold party” at Guildford Golf Club will allow women who would be embarrassed to visit a pawn shop to sell the family jewellery in a more genteel setting.

The concept comes from America, where gold scrapping businesses have bloomed through the recession, and gold parties have caught on in even the smartest suburbs. Just as Tupperware parties brought women together to purchase food containers, so gold parties bring them together to sell grandmother’s bracelets, solitary earrings and outdated fashion jewellery. The hostess is paid a commission of about 10 per cent, while the party company supplies a representative to test and value the gold and offer prices.

Tracy Jackson, 47, who runs a concrete-paving company in the South Yorkshire village of Bolton upon Dearne, pioneered the movement in Britain. “Just before Christmas I was going through a big drawer of jewellery I didn’t wear any more,” she said. “Old stuff I had back from the 1980s, when I used to wear a lot of necklaces all at once.” The gold turned out to be worth £1,200.

“The gold parties were big in America but no one seemed to be doing it here,” she said. She has organised eight parties in the South Yorkshire area, each attracting ten or so women whose gold she purchases for sums totalling £3,000 on average.

Howard Levy, 50, a gold trader from northwest London, saw an advertisement for the parties while he was on holiday in Florida and a couple of months ago set up Your Gold Party. About 20 parties have been organised since, in lounges from London to Birmingham. Mr Levy attends each with an acid testing kit and a record of the gold price that day — £591 per ounce as of yesterday morning.

“We can offer a better price than pawn shops because they have to make a profit on lending the money out,” he said.

One of the parties he has attended was held in the lounge of Vicky Eaglestone, 50, an office manager from St Albans, Hertfordshire. “I would never contemplate going into a pawn shop,” she said. “That would smack of desperation. This was a party, a chance to gossip with the girls. Because of the recession we are putting blocks on our credit cards. We only spend what cash we have. This was a way of making some. I was paid £600 for having the party.”

Adrian Ash, an analyst for the investment and gold storage company BullionVault, compares the gold parties to the buying and selling practices of rural India.

A US company, Ounces2Pounds, has organised 30 gold parties in Britain. Stephen Pearson, head of the company here, has even seen a gold-capped tooth sold at a party in a polite English suburb. His company is also behind the forthcoming soirée at Guildford Golf Club.