Gold diggers offer cash for your old watches and jewellery

A GROUP of second-hand watch and jewellery dealers has been touring the island to find local treasures this week.

Roadshow EU, a British firm that travels Europe in search of gold, diamonds and old designer watches, has visited Limassol, Larnaca, Paphos and Nicosia.

Roadshow Director Christopher Walsh said yesterday “Business is good at the moment. On a good day we can get around 50 visitors, already today we have had 25.”

Many visitors come to cash in on broken watches and old jewellery, which is melted down and sold to bullion dealers. Asked how the business has fared since the economic crisis, Walsh was upbeat.

“At the start of the year, business was awful but now things are smoothing over. I think people wanted to hold on to their valuables, but now that the price of gold is high, more people are coming forward.”

Morne Boates, also a company director, said yesterday “It is amazing how Cyprus is always good for us. We have been there 16 times and every time we buy amazing watches and jewellery.”

In the six years that Walsh has been in the re-sale business, the price of gold has almost trebled.

“When I first started, the price of gold was around $400 per ounce. Now it is between $1,100 and $1,200 per ounce.” At the time of writing, gold was trading at around $1,143 per ounce.

Most of the items that the items that the business buys are watches. Walsh said “Most of our business is in the restoration and resale of watches. These have also risen in value in recent months.”

Depending on the brand, vintage watches can sell for anything from €200 to €10,000.

“The most interesting item I have seen was a 1965 Rolex Daytona three years ago. We paid €10,000 for it, and today it would fetch around €20,000 on the market.

“Just yesterday we bought a Rolex GMT for €1,800.”

As we speak, a man walks in and swaps a broken gold plated Omega watch for €60.

“This will cost me €90 to fix, so I might as well sell it.”

Today they will be meeting bargain hunters at the Amathus Beach Hotel in Paphos, from 10am to 6pm.

 

  • The group is set to return to Limassol and Paphos in January. For more information visit http://www.roadshoweu.com or call +44 7960 165 618

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.