Sibling Adventure Post: Gold!

A few notes about this post: I have been working on convincing my brother Ben to write a post for this newsletter, and I got as far as us co-telling this story via audio note, then I transcribed and edited it, which is what you have before you today. If you would like to vote for more Ben content in Rose-coloured, please comment or email and perhaps he will be swayed. Also, you will note that Ben refers to me as Becky in the course of our dialogue and I just decided to leave it in the interests of journalistic integrity. People who have known me 20+ year do sometimes call me Becky and it’s fine but I am not interested in adding to that roster. No privileges will be revoked but no new ones extended, is what I’m saying. And finally, the audio recording app did not work that well and we were recording in a Japanese restaurant. So the transcription process was not flawless and also the original post was pretty wordy, so you are sort of getting the highlights here. The process at Rose-coloured is ever-evolving. ANYWAY, onward.

RR: What we did today is we took some old jewellery that I and my mom had laying around and before the pandemic…we put it all in the Ziploc bag and then we did nothing for many years and then today then we went to Cash for Gold and we sold it and it was very, very exciting.

BR: So yeah Becky is being kind here in that, it may have sat in drawers for a few years, but pre-Covid,she gave it to me with the idea that I would sell it which I agreed to. Then I started to feel hesitant. It had some history in the family and some sentimental value. I put it in the drawer for a few years without doing anything or following up. Then Becky recently was like where is my jewellery? COVID no longer seemed like a viable excuse. We negotiated ourselves into going out on this beautiful fall day and finally getting the jewellery sold.

RR: So we went to Oliver’s jewellery because those guys did the cash for gold ads when we were kids. When we went in they were playing the retro ads and it was very nostalgic to see them. It’s one of those Toronto institutions like Sam the Record Man or Honest Ed’s. But a wall-mounted TV, it was just a big empty room with a door that you buzz into and counters behind a secure glass wall. It was a bit imposing. And not like a jewellery store, which is what a pawnshop is like on TV, and more what I was expecting: a jewellery shop plus guitars and gold teeth. We had all our jewellery in a Ziploc bag, which did not make us seem like classy people. I could’ve gone on my own, but I was very scared, which is why Ben had to come and do most of the talking, I don’t think it would’ve gone well for me because I was really hoping to get enough money to buy lunch and we got more.

BR: Everyone has their different talents and I think negotiation is something I’m good at. I’m not much for day-to-day haggling, but when it might make a bigger difference I find it fun. So we had a discussion at the beginning and the idea was for us to go into this place without leaving the impression that this was the only place that we were going to. We didn’t want them to know how uninformed we were.

RR: So I agreed not to talk.

BR: So we went into sort of sterile place and a man behind a screen said, are you guys selling, which is the first hurdle cause my whole position was, “we are here for an assessment of our goods.” Trying to play it cool. Was his name Brody?

RR: Brody.

BR: He came out and asked if we were selling and that’s when I started our narrative, you know we were here for an estimate or an assessment. Immediately the questions were about our experience as gold sellers. I suggested we are going to a bunch of places and getting assessments so we can get the right price and he asked where we had gone. I was ready for that question and I named a couple places and he emphasized that they were the best in the city. Then we showed him the gold.

RR: It wasn’t the most exciting stuff: rings that don’t fit and some earrings where I lost the matching earring and some things that were nice enough, but nobody wanted to wear them anymore and a watch it didn’t work, but they were real gold or we thought they were—a few things turned out not to be real.

BR: Anyway, he took it but he definitely wasn’t giving us like the most positive impression of what the outcome is gonna look like. He wanted some form of ID.

RR: I gave him my health card and he took it away. He came back to us, but my health card did not come back. I did get my health card back at the end of the interaction. I should look in my wallet right now to confirm. Excuse me.

BR: …looking in another inner purse and the health card is here! Ok: Back at the store, they took all of the gold and Becky‘s health card into a back room that we couldn’t see, and we talked one on one, possibly within hearing range of the guy, unclear. Becky was doing a good job of not speaking while Brody was present but she did tend to have a sort of “what your worst offer?” expression on her face that also said “I’ll accept it.” Pretty soon the gentleman came back with nothing of what we had given him. Then the first kind of mention of price which was “in the $500-$1000 range.” He asked us what we thought about that. Becky said nothing but she seemed she seemed very enthusiastic, having told me before that she thought we should accept $30 if that’s what we were given. I think that $30 expression was present on her face. I tried to get Brody‘s attention as he was counting his commission. And I said “well you know just give us your estimate.” He asked me what we had received so far. I responded I don’t believe it’s in my interest to answer that question. He said OK but just remember we are the best in the city. He went back into the back room. Though I can’t really claim she had done anything wrong up to now I felt the need to say that we should not accept the offer that came even though we knew it was gonna be much better than either of us had expected at this point, and Becky told me that she was very nervous.

RR:I was very nervous

BR: Do you want to add more about your thoughts and feelings or observations at this point?

RR: I didn’t want to hurt Brody‘s feelings and I did want to get the money. I was excited and I didn’t want anyone to be upset with us or with me.

BR: I understood that I had sat on this for a while. Becky wanted the deal closed today and was not confident this would be achieved if we went to multiple stores, so this was it. So I think based on my past behaviour I had a responsibility to close the deal in the store. But I wasn’t fussed about Brody’s feelings. He soon arrived with a tray of things that we had brought that they didn’t want. That’s all he brought out: not Becky’s health card, not the stuff that they did want. He said these things aren’t gold and they couldn’t take them. Then he mentioned the figure of $1100. Becky looked extremely interested and started pawing through the things that weren’t gold. I asked if he could bring her gold out and he did and they were in different slots in a muffin tin, depending on what karat of gold they were. I asked if Becky and I could speak privately. He a little surprised and said sure and we went and I said I thought we should ask for 1250. Becky how did you feel?

RR: I didn’t care because it was so much more money than I ever ever thought we could get and I knew we could go out for a really good fancy dinner with that and I wanted to leave, but I said you could do whatever you wanted.

BR: So to be honest, at this point, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job. I’m not getting the positive feedback that I felt that I deserved. One doesn’t want to hear do whatever you want. That’s usually what someone says to you when they think you’re making a mistake. I was kind of proud of myself. Though we have many similarities, we also have many differences in this case. There are many many other way where I think Becky has qualities that are greater than mine, but not when it comes to selling used gold. In this case, the differences between us might be measurable in dollars. I think that we can’t exactly estimate the dollar value you would’ve gotten for this bag of gold. But $30 is not outside of the realm of possibility so in that situation the dollar value between you and me and handling this interaction could be as the difference could be as large as $1220. You didn’t have a chance to respond.

RR: It could also still be in the drawer.

BR: This is fair. You know the value that we got out of this is completely dependent on some decisions by Becky .

RR: We are a good team

BR: I went back and he had the dollars in his hand getting ready for us to say yes. The guy was all about making a sale that day, but I said you know I think we really want to get 1250 and if you want to stick to the $1100 if you can put that in writing, we’ll take it back and think about it. He definitely thought he had live ones here and he did not want us to leave so he went back and checked. He came back pretty quickly having spoken to his manager allegedly and said that he could do 1250 if we both gave him a good Google review, which was something that we were more than happy to provide.

RR: He was very nice

BR: I can’t complain about it. If we had done more of a due diligence I guess we could’ve evaluated better what type of offer he gave us. My high-level reaction is he didn’t want to feel like he was giving away the 150 for nothing so he wanted there to be some kind of exchange there hence the google reviews. My mind immediately goes to how much higher could we have gone and I have no idea but I’m sure it could’ve been somewhat higher given how quickly they agreed. Still, I felt satisfied and pretty proud of the outcome and we were happy to give a Google review although only one of us has a Google account, but he didn’t seem very concerned about the process of Becky eventually giving him a good review. Becky is still haunted by what she needs to do.

RR: I will find a way

BR: And then he took out a fat stack of bills and counted them out accurately and gave them to us along with the health card. There was a weird moment in the middle where like he told us that like they deducted based on the weight of the pearls because they don’t accept pearls so I got those back, considering that they were basically being called out as valueless. I suppose now we have to like go to I Buy Your Pearls at some point of the future. I think we might’ve shook hands. It was shockingly fast and no one had to sign anything or do anything. We just walked off into the beautiful sun.

Notes: I still don’t know how to leave a Google review without a Gmail account but until I sort it, consider this my review of the Cash for Gold experience. We are using the money to go to a French restaurant with the whole fam this weekend, as I assume the ancestors (whose jewellery some of it was) would have wanted, and then we will see what we can do with whatever is left over.