Buying Gold and Selling Gold? The Answers to Common Questions

At West Seattle Coins and Bellevue Rare Coins, our business is buying gold and selling gold, as well as rare coins, silver, jewelry and antiques. Every day, people come in to one of our three locations with questions about how to start investing in precious metals—or how to turn the valuables they have into cold, hard cash.

You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers.
We’ve put together a list of answers to some of the questions we’re most often asked. Read on to learn the ins and outs of buying and selling bullion, antique jewelry, rare coins and more.

Do I need to make an appointment to bring in my valuables for evaluation?
Nope. All of our customers are walk-in visits. Just stop by any of our locations during normal business hours. Our West Seattle store is open Monday to Friday from 10-5 and Saturday from 10-4. Our Bellevue and Lynnwood locations stay open a bit later: 10-6 on Monday to Friday and 10-5 on Saturday. And here’s a tip: If you can make it in between 10 and 11:30 or between 2 and 4:30, chances are there won’t be as many customers, and your wait—if there’s any at all—will be much shorter.

How can I find our your current prices for gold and other valuables?
The price of gold (and of any precious metal) varies every day, minute to minute, just like stocks in the market. Click here for current bullion prices on our website or just give us a call. We’ll be happy to talk about buying and selling gold, silver, rare coins and your other valuables.

I’ve already had an appraisal done; should I bring it with me?
You bet. No paperwork is required when selling your jewelry, but if you had an evaluation done by someone else or other documentation, we encourage you to bring it in. We have G.I.A.-certified jewelry consultants on staff to serve you.

Do you purchase silverware and flatware?
Yes. Just bring it by and we’ll have our precious metal experts evaluate your silver pieces for you and tell you how much they’re worth. If you ever have a question about whether we would purchase a specific item, bring it in and if it has silver in it—chances are, we will!

I’m bringing in some sterling silver flatware; should I have it cleaned first?
Not unless you really want to. There’s no need to go to the trouble of having your sterling silver cleaned before bringing it in. And if you have some old coins you’d like our experts to evaluate, please don’t clean them—it can actually reduce their value.

Do you make custom jewelry?
Sorry, we don’t any longer. However, we do sell custom jewelry as well as popular designs. Our Bellevue store in particular boasts an outstanding collection of antique and contemporary jewelry—handpicked from the items we’ve acquired from the huge estate liquidations we’ve handled for over 30 years—with new and exciting items arriving every day.

These are just a sampling of the questions we get asked all the time. If your question hasn’t been answered here, don’t be shy—just give us a call or come by and we’ll be happy to discuss any aspect of buying or selling precious metals, rare coins, diamonds, jewelry and more.