Misleading Adverts
Cash for Gold - London Prices Paid
A spurious advert from a minor local competitor, but rather misleading with errors, inaccuracies, and untruths in it, not to mention bullshit.
Cash for Gold
London prices paid
Broken and resaleable jewellery always wanted
odd earrings broken chains rings with stones missing etc
sovereigns krugerands (sic) all gold coins bought
all quality watches working or not gold pocket watches wanted
military medal masonic jewels silverware i.e. teasets trays etc
we can call to (sic) your home if required
J&L Carr - A&B Holloway
Waterloo Road Blackpool
Garden Street St Annes
Timeless Jewellery Clifton Street Lytham
We are Not Here Today and Gone Tomorrow we have Been
Established on the Fylde Coast for Over 50 Years
So, What's Up Doc?
What's wrong with this advert?
Well, for a start, the claim "London prices paid" is almost meaningless. Sure it's aimed at making simple gullible people (suckers) think that means a high price, whereas in fact it means just about nothing, and quite probably, quite low prices too.
For somebody who has been established for over 50 years, you would hope that they knew how to spell Krugerrand correctly instead of "krugerand". This may be a minor point, but it could be an important clue into the professionalism or otherwise of the company or people behind the advert.
We may be being rather pedantic, but we would like to think that if we had written the advert, we would have used some punctuation, but then perhaps this is a little old-fashioned of us.
"We are Not Here Today and Gone Tomorrow". When I was very young, I used to listen to one of the spivs (wide boys) on Blackpool Promenade, giving a "spiel". Part of it made me smile at the time, and still does. The "spiv" in question was a well-known personality who at the time ran a stall selling cheap pens and Swiss watches. He used to say "We are not here today and gone tomorrow, we are here today and gone tonight!" It was, in my opinion, a charmingly honest revelation about the character.
"Established on the Fylde Coast for Over 50 Years". This part appears to be blatantly untrue and misleading. Alan Holloway was a partner in our company until 1991, so he could not claim to be established for over 50 years unless he is counting the time he was employed by, or a partner in our business, which is not what any reader would expect it to mean. Over fifty years would mean before 1959, and as we ourselves have only been established 45 years, there is something wrong with Holloway's arithmetic. If the claim relates to Carr in St. Annes, a shop at 7 Garden St. was owned and run by Geoffrey Hyman as G. M. Harris until recently. We do not know when J&L Carr started up, and Timeless Jewellery is also relatively new.
If the owners would like to provide us with evidence to prove their claim, we would be happy to remove these comments.
See Also:
Our Conclusions and Advice
Over more than 40 years in this business, we have seen a stream of similar cash buyers, advertisers, and leafleteers, most of whom pay low prices. We would recommend that any potential seller shops round a little. If you are not satisfied by the price you can get locally, you could always post it or bring it to us, and will almost certainly get a better price than from your local jewellers and dealers.
Sterling or Dollar Prices for Gold
In March 2010, we received a letter from Geoffrey Hyman, who used to trade as G.M. Harris, asking us to correct or clarify a few points on this page. Geoffrey was, in our opinion, one of the few knowledgeable and honest jewellers in the UK. One of his suggestions was that we our reference to a highest gold price in U.S. dollars was true but misleading, and that gold in sterling terms is considerably higher in price than it was in March 2008. We are happy to add this:
This page was originally created in June 2009. In June 2009 (1st a.m.) gold peaked in dollars at $987, and averaged under $890, against a peak of $1,023.50 in 2008 (17th March a.m.).
The peaks in sterling were £690.353 on 20th February 2009 against a highest of £609.57 in June 2009 (5th a.m.), and an average of only £579.03.
Geoffrey continues by asking the rather disingenuous question "Incidentally, when was gold £100 higher than it is now? I cannot find it on Kitco?"br>
Perhaps we should have added a publication date to this particular page of our website, but we are not perfect and don't pretend to be. His question is slightly mischievous in that he undoubtedly realises our page was written some time ago, and not on the day he wrote to us. Although Kitco is a popular site for gold prices, it is not the best, and certainly when sterling prices are concerned. Geoffrey and others will find some useful and informative prices on this website, for example "Highest Gold Prices in Sterling", which we update manually; and although we try to keep this fully up to date, we are often too busy when gold does peak to edit all our relevant pages immediately. (Fancy a part time job Geoffrey?)
What does surprise us slightly is why Geoffrey should remonstrate with us, when we are correct, accuse of of misleading, when we are not, but fail to damn Holloway, Carr, and Timeless for actually misleading!
We did learn that Linton Carr appears to run the St. Annes shop, and we are aware his mother used to deal in antiques, so perhaps this is where the 50 year claim arises.
Percentages
What may be more relevant, or easier to understand, is to look at some of the percentages paid by this competitor.
If we kindly assume they wrote the wording for their envelopes when gold was at its previous peak of £690.353 per troy ounce, this equates to £8.32 per gram for 9ct gold, and £4 (their stated "base" price) is only 45.35% of this. Less than half!
Even at the June 2009 average price of £579.03 which is equivalent to £6.98 per gram of 9ct., their percentage paid would only have been 57.31%.
Scrap Gold Selling Advice
Our simple advice about selling scrap gold jewellery in the UK and elsewhere. Avoid get ripped off.
Any Quantity
We are happy to buy any quantity of scrap, from a single piece upwards, without limit.
If you have a large quantity of gold scrap to sell, we will accept your instructions on price, or offer you helpful advice on selling. We are one of the longest established and largest gold buyers in Britain.
Fair and Competitive Prices
Our buying prices for gold coins, bars and scrap are fair and competitive, but depend and change based on underlying gold prices, and other market conditions such as supply and demand.
Sending Gold Scrap by Post
You are welcome to visit our showroom to sell scrap, but it's also very easy to sell to us using the post. We have a page of advice about sending gold coins and scrap by post.
We suggest you bring ID if visiting our showroom.
Gold Selling Form
You may wish to print out our form to help make it easy for you to list goods you are posting to us for sale or offer.
We Buy Gold Coins
We Buy Krugerrands
We Buy Gold Sovereigns
We Buy Gold Bars
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Cash for Gold - London Prices Paid
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