All that glitters...

You can't have failed to notice the sudden wave of adverts on TV from companies offering to buy your gold jewellery for hard cash.
So what's it all about?
The reason why these businesses are apparently springing up out of nowhere with readies in hand is that the price of gold on the investment market has rocketed during the past three years.
It's risen significantly mainly because tangible assets like gold are viewed as a safe place to put your money at a time when savings accounts pay diddly squat and even banks look wobbly.
So there's clearly a rising market among investors wanting to buy gold and other precious metals.
But be careful out there if you're a seller after a useful wodge of notes.
What most of the gold-for-cash companies will offer you is based on what's known as the melt value – in other words, what your ring/pendant/bangle or whatever may be worth when it's put into an industrial furnace and turned into molten metal.
But that quoted melt value will be a) discounted, and b) significantly below what you might fetch selling your gold ring to someone who wants to buy a gold ring. Basically, it's the scrap value.
But when you put all that melted gold together it adds up to ingots which are currently worth a whole load of dosh.
May be you don't care about all this and just need some cash.
Or may be you could reflect on the fact that those tenners they handed over are well below what they'll make flogging it on, or what a jeweller might tell you it's actually worth.
One more point: I wonder just how long this rising price will last? I remember another tangible asset which, three years ago, looked like it would only ever go up and up.
And look at house prices now...