Yep, this is pretty sad. In my small town they advertised in the local paper for 2 weeks that a gold buyer was coming to the local mall to buy scrap jewelry and pay 'top dollar'. There was a radio ad that even suggested this may be the last chance to sell before gold goes lower! It was almost presented as if this buyer was doing everyone a big favour. Where I live its a retirement community with many seniors on fixed budgets. I heard there was a line up of people looking to sell. I doubt very many of these sellers understood that they were getting less than a third of the real melt value for their gold. I doubt many of them would know that gold was trading above $1100 at the time.

I was at Pike Place Market in Seattle last week and found a vendor with 2 silver eagle coins for sale at $22 each. I bought them both. I was happy to pay a premium on silver bullion to buy.

Those scrap gold buyers are getting leverage to bullion at a huge discount. Is it fair? Any transaction requires both a willing buyer and seller to happen. If some people are willing to trade their real assets for peanuts, its their loss. Dumb money is usually cleaned out before a big bull market launch. Dumber money is there buying the tops. I guess time will tell which category this latest trend falls into.

cheers!

mike