The biggest losses come from traveling buying events that pay low under a deadline, mail-in kits that set the price after your gold is gone, online buyers who pay with bad checks or reversed payments, and fake coins or bars. Choose the buyer yourself, watch every test and weighing, and have the offer itemized on paper before anything changes hands.
Where sellers lose money
A bad coin or gold sale is often perfectly legal. The seller could not see how the price was set, or had no time to compare it with another offer. Here are the setups that cause the most trouble and what protects you in each one.
Several of these share one weak point: the item, the testing or the money is out of your sight at the moment that counts. Keeping all three in view takes care of most of the risk.
Pressure is the other common thread. A deadline, a buyer who calls first, or an offer that is good only if you sell everything all push a seller to decide before comparing. Slowing down costs nothing with an honest buyer.
| Setup | How the loss happens | What protects you |
|---|---|---|
| Traveling hotel buying event | Low offers made under a deadline of a few days | A written offer you can take home and compare |
| Mail-in gold or coin kit | Testing, weighing and pricing happen after the buyer has your items | Photos and home weights first, or selling in person |
| Online marketplace buyer | Bounced checks, reversed payments or meeting a stranger with valuables | Fully cleared funds before shipping, and no strangers at your home |
| Cold call, letter or knock at the door | Someone who saw an obituary or estate sale pushes for a quick deal | Picking the buyer yourself |
| Cash-for-gold kiosk or counter | One lump price with no breakdown by karat | An offer split out by karat and weight |
| Coins bought from TV ads or online | Fakes or heavy markups discovered at resale | Testing before you count on the value |
Traveling buying events
A traveling buying event is a temporary operation in a rented hotel room. It stays a few days, then packs up for the next city. Mailers and newspaper ads bring sellers in by promising strong prices on almost anything old.
Travel, rooms and advertising all have to be paid for out of what the buyers make, and offers often reflect that. Time is the bigger problem. With the buyers leaving on a set day, a seller who wants a second opinion has to find one fast or let the chance pass, and plenty of people sell rather than lose it.
Ads for these events often promise a free appraisal. What you get in the room is a quote to buy, and unless you ask for it on paper, there is nothing to carry to another buyer for comparison.
If you go, take an inventory list and do not hand over a whole box at once. Show a few pieces, ask for each one to be priced separately on paper, and leave with that paper. A buyer who will price your coins only if you sell the whole lot has told you how the offer was built.
Mail-in kits and selling online
A mail-in kit moves the steps that decide the price out of sight. You seal your gold or coins in an envelope, and the company tests, weighs and prices them somewhere else before sending an offer or a check. If the number is low, you are bargaining over items you no longer hold.
If you use one anyway, photograph every piece on both sides, weigh each karat group on a gram scale and keep the postal receipt. Read how long you have to reject an offer and who pays to ship things back. Those terms differ a lot from one company to the next.
Ask how the package is insured and for how much before you seal it. A kit that covers only a small amount leaves you holding the loss if a heavy envelope of gold goes missing on the way.
Selling online brings a different set of risks. Some buyers pay with checks that bounce after the coins ship, overpay and ask for the difference back, or open a dispute after delivery to pull the payment. Wait until payment has fully cleared, never send back an overpayment, and do not meet a stranger at home to hand over gold or coins.
Fake coins, fake bars and fake holders
Counterfeits reach Denver homes the same way they reach homes everywhere, through online listings, auction sites and travel souvenirs. Morgan and Peace dollars, U.S. gold coins and bullion such as Silver Eagles and Krugerrands are frequent targets. Plenty of careful collectors bought a copy without knowing it, so finding one in a parent's coins is common.
Bars have their own tricks, including gold-plated bars built around a cheaper metal and sized to match the weight of real gold. Size, weight and a proper non-destructive test settle a bar together.
Slabs get copied too. Type the certification number from the label into the grader's website, then hold the coin next to the screen. The date, denomination and grade on the record should all match what is in your hand.
Bullion bought from television ads is a separate trap. Many of those coins are real, but some sold as collectibles carry prices far above their metal, and the markup disappears when the coins are resold. A thin gold or silver plating on a commemorative medal holds almost no metal at all.
None of the home checks below proves a coin is genuine, and none of them should leave a mark. They do catch the crude fakes.
| Check | What a real piece does | What should worry you |
|---|---|---|
| Gram scale | A Morgan or Peace dollar weighs close to 26.73 g; a one ounce Gold Eagle close to 33.93 g | A reading well off the correct weight |
| Strong magnet | Gold and silver do not stick | Any pull at all, though many fakes pass this test |
| Worn spots | The same metal shows all the way through | Brass, copper or gray metal peeking through |
| Graded holder | The certification number matches the online record | No record, or a record for a different coin |
| Price paid | In line with other sellers at the time | Far below the going price for the metal |
Testing that damages what you own
Some buyers test gold by rubbing it on a stone and dabbing acid on the streak, or by filing a small notch to see what is underneath. On a broken chain that may matter little. On a coin, any scratch or acid spot is damage, and it lowers the grade and the collector price for good.
Cleaning causes the same kind of harm. Sellers sometimes polish coins before an appointment so they look their best, and the effort backfires, because cleaning lowers a coin's grade. Ask how a buyer plans to test before anyone handles your pieces, and refuse anything that leaves a mark.
Be cautious of a buyer who offers to clean your coins as a favor before making an offer. Cleaned coins grade lower, and a lower grade means a lower collector price, so the favor works against you.
Our testing is non-destructive, so no acid and no scratching, and we weigh on a calibrated scale you can watch. Your coin or ring leaves the appointment in the condition it arrived in.
A safer way to sell, step by step
These steps work with any buyer, us included.
We meet one seller at a time by private appointment, and the evaluation is free. Nobody waits in line behind you. The written offer lists each item. If you take it, you are paid before you part ways, in cash, by check, or by wire for a larger sale. If you pass, every piece and the list go home with you.
If you are handling a sale for an estate, a written, item-by-item list gives the executor, personal representative or family attorney a clear record of each line of the offer, and it lets heirs check later that every piece is accounted for.
- Make an inventory before showing anything: photos of both sides of better coins and a weight for each bag of jewelry.
- Pick the buyer yourself, and skip anyone who called, wrote or knocked first.
- Ask how testing and weighing will be done, and where.
- Ask for the offer on paper, line by line for coins and group by group for gold.
- Take the offer home if you want time, and compare it with one other buyer.
- Leave estate coins locked up together until the family agrees on a plan.
- Bring someone you trust to the appointment if that helps.
Scams that reach Denver families
Buyers who read obituaries and estate sale listings go looking for families in the middle of a loss. People clearing out a bungalow in Wash Park, a brick ranch in Englewood or a split-level in Arvada can get calls or letters within weeks, offering to take coins and jewelry off their hands. Traveling events also book hotel rooms near the interchanges along I-25 and C-470 for a few days at a time, then move on. The flyers tend to land in suburban mailboxes from Littleton to Westminster, and the people behind them are usually gone by the following week.
Colorado's gold rush past adds a local wrinkle. Clark, Gruber and Co. struck real private gold coins in Denver in 1860 and 1861, and reproductions of early Colorado gold pieces can turn up in estates beside genuine double eagles and silver dollars. Souvenir coins from mountain gift shops land in the same cigar boxes. Sorting the copies from the real coins comes before any offer, and it keeps a family from splitting a box based on guesses. A mixed box like that needs a coin-by-coin look before anyone names a figure.
If a postcard, a caller or a mail-in envelope has you unsure, call us at 303-401-0104 and talk it through before you decide anything. Calls are returned the same business day, and we meet by private appointment across the Denver metro and Boulder, from Highlands Ranch to Broomfield. A home visit is an option for a large collection, so the coins never have to leave the house. Bring a family member if you like. Sellers need a government-issued photo ID.