Cash For Gold Promises To Pay You More For Your Gold, Jewelry & More!
By Lauren Saslow Figuring out what to do with Grandma’s estate jewelry after she passes, or even what to do with jewelry received as gifts from an ex-spouse, can be confounding. Pawn shops can oftentimes leave you feeling cheated, and will require a 30-day hold. But, Cash for Gold of Wesley Chapel (located at the corner of S.R. 54 and Morris Bridge Rd./Eiland Blvd.) has a better answer for you. As a commodities broker, instead of a financial institution, Cash For Gold is a one-stop shop where you can turn your old or broken jewelry into quick cash. Since 2009, Cash for Gold has served the Wesley Chapel community with a motto of “honesty, integrity and reliability.” The owner of this family-owned-and-operated shop, Trevor Campbell, says that the business is run by local residents who have a combined 30 years of experience. Campbell says he first gained experience in the gold and jewelry industry by purchasing items at community garage sales and reselling the items at a profit. He went on to many hours of training with diamonds under the guidance of Keith Leclerc of the International Diamond Center in Clearwater, where he learned to identify the “Five Cs”: Clarity, Cut, Color, Carat and Certification. “[Leclerc] would drop 800 carats of diamonds in front of me and tell me to sort them out — by browns, SI1s, SI2s, etc. or by diamonds that are chipped or damaged — until I got it right,” Campbell recalls. Over time, he says he realized the need for
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a business where private investors or individuals could buy and sell gold and diamonds for a fair price. He adds that the scales and balances used in the shop to determine the accurate weight of the gold, silver and jewels are licensed and calibrated through the Department of Weights and Measures of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. “A representative of the Agricultural and Consumer Protection Specialist Division of Standards comes to my office every year,” explains Campbell. “He puts up to 500 penny weights on the scale to be sure it’s 100-percent accurate.” Campbell’s license through the Florida Department of Revenue allows him to purchase gold in the state of Florida, and he also maintains a Certificate of Registration for Secondhand Dealers or Secondary Metals Recyclers in Pasco County, also through the Florida Department of Agriculture. “In other words, we have every license we need to ensure our motto of reliability,” Campbell explains.
More Than Just Gold
In addition to gold, Cash for Gold also accepts many valuable items such as silver, domestic and foreign coins, gold and silver bullion, antique swords and daggers, dental gold and “grills,” military paraphernalia, autographs and chipped diamonds, as well as other precious jewelry. Customers also may bring in their jewelry and watches for repairs, which are provided by local jeweler
Noel Mercado. Cash For Gold also offers a gold-dipping service that converts yellow gold into the currently more popular white gold in as few as three business days (excluding Sunday and Monday). One customer who happened into the shop during the interview deals solely in silver. As Campbell explains, “He will buy all of our coins and, because we are so competitive, he still can sell them to someone else at a profit.” Cash for Gold, located on Eiland Blvd., just north of S.R. 54 in Campbell emphasizes that gold is not always valu- Wesley Chapel, is owned by Trevor Campbell. Also pictured are ated by its weight alone, but Campbell’s daughter Alexa & store manager Chrissy Candill. Photos by Frank Edmonson, FJE Photography also by an item’s historical Freemasons. The charm (photo below) value. He pulls out one particularly enigopens to reveal the miniature cryptic letters matic charm that he says he bought from a “HTWSSTKS” engraved in a circle, an customer for $170, and later discovered acronym for “Hiram The Widow’s Son that it represented one man’s title in a subSent To King Solomon.” This refers to the sect of the Freemasonry society — a fraterOld Testament legend nal “secret society” with medieval origins of Hiram Abiff, who in craft guilds, and popularized in recent plays a significant role decades by the novel and movie, “The Da Vinci Code.” After describing the details of in the third degree of Freemasonry. Campthe charm — which has moving pieces, a knight’s head, two swords crossed behind a bell speculates that, in red crucifix and a crown — one Freemason addition to being immember verified that the “32” at the top of pressive looking, this the charm indicates that the original owner charm may be significant to another memwas a 32nd degree Master Mason, only ber of this society. one degree from the highest title of the
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