The seller of this stash walked out of Global Gold & Silver on October 16 with about $3,000.
Photo: John Taggart
“It’s been absolutely chaotic,” Oshri Reuven is saying. He’s an owner of Global Gold & Silver, which trades in precious metals on 45th Street. In mid-October, those commodities reached record prices, topping $4,300 per troy ounce for gold and $54 for silver. (In January, they were about $2,600 and $30.) “People are definitely searching in their valuables and bringing in everything,” he says. That has been true all over: On a recent Friday at Manhattan Gold & Silver, over on 47th, the sellers’ line snaked up a stairwell and onto the second floor. A lot of his customers, Reuven says, “are in their late 60s or 70s and have jewelry that the kids or grandkids don’t want.” He says business is running about 30 percent above normal.
For those who do brave the lines, the process is quick and non-chaotic. Everything’s weighed down to the hundredth of a gram. Gold is evaluated with a scratch against a flat black surface and then a drop of acid to reveal whether it’s 14-karat, 18-karat, some other alloy, or flat-out fake. (That test surface is, nonmetaphorically, called a touchstone.) The payout is often electronic, although smallish amounts can be in cash. Global pays 90 percent of the spot price, the figure you hear on the news.
Once all this heavy metal comes in, is it going out? Is there a glut? “Some people are uncomfortable with the volume,” he admits, and “the larger companies buying from them are putting on the brakes a little bit.” For a smaller operator like Reuven, that could theoretically be a problem. Some of his neighbors, he tells me, have been offering 70 percent of spot to hedge against a dip. But he’s okay, at least for now. “We’re more diversified: We have watches and name-brand jewelry, so one department is not going to make or break the business.”
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the October 20, 2025, issue of
New York Magazine.
Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now
to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage.
If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the October 20, 2025, issue of
New York Magazine.