This is a specific question, I would appreciate if someone with an
experience, background or just general knowledge in this field would
answer the question.

I have a collection of gold that my aunt wishes to be sold as quickly
as possible, it contains anything from rings, coins, necklaces,
earrings, etc and has a mix of diamonds, various gold colors, and
other stones.

I am planning to pawn the items at a local gold shop (there are about
6 around where I live) for an average of 20% retail price as long as
the gold gets sold. Then I recalled that Google Answers might help me
do a better job. Would you be able to help me?

The obvious way to sell it is to either open an eBay (or another
auction) account and selling it through an auction. With luck, I might
get more than what Im asking for. The problem for me is that a) This
takes a lot of my time b) It requires me to open unwanted accounts c)
It requires me to submit all the sorts of personal information which I
do not like to do d) It (usually) requires me to open up a PayPal
account (by preference of most eBay'ers) which I do not wish to do and
am not planning to e) The remaining payments such as money orders or
cashier checks require extra days for shipping and are just not
favorable by me. Thus anything of such sort is out of the question.

I'd say going to a pawn gold shop would be the quickest and easiest
way to sell the gold. Or going through newspaper classifieds and
calling up those screaming "I WILL BUY YOUR OLD GOLD!!!" ads which
will connect me with individuals who buy and resell the gold. Perhaps
using some sort of online classifieds such as craigslist.org might
also do the trick.

Can you help me get the cash into my hands quickly?

---

Request for Question Clarification by muhammad-ga on 27 Aug 2004 05:22 PDT

Hello!

Please let me know where do you stay, so that I can help you with the
local dealers of that area. Dealing with dealers near to you shall
help you to finalize the deal faster than using online traders and you
will also get a chance to negotiate by meeting them in person.

Regards,
muhammad-ga,
Google Answers Researcher

You might try a coin/precious metals store rather than a pawn shop. 
In any case, you should check a couple places before selling.

While I am a big fan of eBay in general, I would recommend against
selling gold online.  The main reason is that fraud is a much bigger
problem when dealing with things like gold (high value, easy to
re-sell) than with commemorative saltshakers or other collectables. 
While you are likely to get a better price selling them yourself, fees
will eat into the difference, and it will take a while.

If you think it would be fun to be a gold dealer, that's one thing and
you should go for it.  If you're just trying to sell the stuff, sell
it to someone who likes being a gold dealer.

You might what to take it to a Trading Post
that will list your stuff on a auction house such as ebay.