Keen to know the best strategies to deal with Gold. Desi households tend to collect quite a bit of gold over time, I am keen to get some insight into this stuff ..
Do you keep the receipts safely? and take them with you if you are carrying a significant amount of gold with you , while travelling? Someone told me that it becomes difficult to sell gold if you have lost the receipts , how true is that?
Realistically you cant be wearing the same set at every occasion, so do you prefer to buy more gold or get previous sets re-designed? is it cost effective?
How do you protect gold , its an expensive thing to just leave around at home, specially the wedding jewellery. Do you leave it in the bank , all of it ? or hide it around the house? ( a desi aunty told me once, its difficult to leave gold in the bank coz she gets charged everytime she operates her locker , so she tends to hide it around at home )
I get told quite often that the quality of Gold in Pakistan isnt as good as what we get in the middle east , so sometime back I asked a few shop keepers and they said its true because they dont accept Pakistani gold since they cant be sure of the quality or quantity of it .. while , Pakistani goldsmiths told me thats not true and Pakistani gold gets accepted for selling purposes everywhere in the world .. but then not too long ago a friend tried selling a set of kara in Manchester and they didnt take it from her ..
Personally I am very confused about this whole Gold thing, it seems unless its small items of day to day wear , you cant wear them in Pakistan due to security reasons, here in the UK , its not safe either, so whats the point of increasing the gold assets?
I don’t keep anything at home, except one chain and a few earrings. There have been too many break ins our city and my family and EVERYONE knows that desis hoard jewelry and cash at home. I’ve seen family members get completely wiped out. In the US, safe deposit boxes in the banks don’t charge you each time you access it.
I pay like $40 a year for my safety deposit box I think. My bank is walking distance from my house so it’s not a problem for me to retrieve what I want to wear for weddings/big parties, but honestly, for the past few years I’ve mostly been wearing the artificial jewelry I keep at home or my simple diamond jewelry.
As far as accumulating new items, in 2008 when I went to KHI, I traded in my big, heavy solid gold rani haar from my wedding for 4 smaller lighter sets and 2 contemporary white gold bangles. I prefer more delicate and modern designs. I also have some gem stone sets and karras my husband has gifted me over the years of our marriage and that’s enough to last me. I don’t mind wearing what I have over and over again.
These days I’m more keen on adding to my diamond jewelry collection, rather than accumulating more desi jewelry.
I keep my receipts for zakat purposes, so that I remember the weights/grams/prices I paid.
and yes, agree that the quality of gold purchased from a reputable vendor in middle east is more reliable than that purchased in pakistan…not only because you can’t trust a vendor in pakistan but because the designs that they sell often require a certain amount of copper or other elements to be added to the gold to strengthen it for wear-ability. (for example…you are unlikely to find a valuable diamond setting to be made in 22K gold as it will not be strong enough to hold the stone in place.)
I Buy G coins(10 gm) instead.
I buy them for saving/investment purpose, I hate wearing gold. In fact, the trend with wearing gold is changing, now people prefer to buy artificial sets one advantage being that it’ll never get snatched second is that you can ammend it according to dress code.
One shud have special places to hide it.
Yes, I’m in Texas. There is a very big desi and Asian population here that are business owners. Most of the employees of these business owners who are hispanic figured out that Asians keep their loot at home. In my suburb (affluent/upper middle class), in a 4 month period, there were 8 robberies at the homes of Indo/Paks & other Asians…my khala’s house was one of the ones that was robbed…the police busted a crime group of hispanic guys that worked in the wholesale market area where my family has their business.
My mom’s house was also broken into before I got married, and the jewelry she was keeping aside for me was all stolen.
I’d NEVER keep any valuable or heavy gold jewelry at home. I’m too paranoid now…I’ve seen too many people get wiped out.
Its not very safe here in the UK either .. some of my family got robbed as well , all their gold taken .. they seem to have some kind of metal detectors and it takes them minutes to locate where the loot is ..
Anyways , so bank it is then , but what about selling the gold items , its it easy ? I have heard its difficult selling gold , you have to do it wisely , particularly if you dont have a receipt
Also I have heard that its always a loss if you sell an item and get it remade .. its always better to go and buy a new piece , how true is that ? would you buy a new piece rather then selling an old item and getting a new one made?
Cb theres a rule here, in their own terms it called “kaat” whenever u sell gold they keep the margin. Plus they accept gold with gems n count them as included in gold weight i:e they wont pay u the gold price separate n gems separate untill unless the gems are some precious ones.
I do know abt these things because all of my wedding jewellery was made by my mamoo whose in this business n they forbade me to buy readymade jewellery from anywhere else coz apparently they look so nice but they charge way too much for design cost plus theres always a milawat in it. A normal person cannot even identify it. Ive sold a lot of my jewellery when i wanted to invest in a property n i wouldnr hve done it without their support so thats true a reliable goldsmith is what u need in order to trade in your jewellery or get it remade.
hmm I see, thanks Maryqass , that really gave me insight , I know that almost all of my buzrugs in the family are against me selling my gold items to get new ones or get them remade ..
Also I got some rings as gifts at my wedding , family is dead against me getting them sized up coz they said the gold wala’s ( i think they are called pinsaar’s , If I am not wrong ) wont return the gold they cut from the rings ..
So I guess its just the only option really to go and buy new ones?
What do you guys plan for the gold you collect, something to pass onto the generations? wouldnt the designs be much out of fashion for the generations to use? `
In the UAE, if you save the receipt, you can get it exchanged from the shop you bought it from…and you will get a better return price. Other shops will not exchange it. They will buy it for cash instead…and that too at a much lower price. So yes, saving the receipt does help if you intend to get it exchanged for something else from the place you originally bought it from.
THat must be a small bank, otherwise, most major banks just charge an annual fee for storage, and allow you as many visits as you want. So it is really safe and cost effective to store expensive jewelry in a safe deposit box. Plus, you can also get the box insured for the value of the contents, so in case there is a theft at the bank, or a fire etc, you will get your value back.
Gold shops in the UAE do not buy/exchange against jewelry bought from Pakistan becasue of the reasons you quoted above. In one experience we had, my wife had a 22k piece of jewelry from Pakistan, and the UAE shop was willing to buy it at 18k price for the reason that they dont trust the contents…and unfortunately, it is true. Pak jewelers have developed a bad rep the world over.
