Rush to trade gold for dollars sparks cash shortages in NYC's Diamond District
Last week at Bullion Exchanges — a storefront at 30 W. 47th St. in Midtown Manhattan that displays assorted gold coins and jewelry behind thick plexiglass — a handful of customers had been buzzed inside while others waited on the busy sidewalk.
At the counter, a young woman shoved a fistful of gold trinkets under the bank-teller style window. Ten minutes later, she left with a check for $3,330.
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'This is a new experience for me,' the woman told The Post, declining to give her name as she edged out the door.
5 Alon Mirzaev of US Gold Refinery holds a container full of gold jewelry he bought in one day.
Stefano Giovannini
Business is 'going gangbusters' since gold surpassed $3,000 per ounce in March, according Bullion Exchanges CEO Ben Tseytlin. By April, it climbed to $3,500 over President Trump's tariffs and his pressure campaign on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates.
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Gold was recently trading at $3,334 an ounce. Silver has surged to a 13-year high of $35 per ounce.
Accordingly, many customers on West 47th Street are looking to sell stuff that's made of gold instead of buy it. As a result, retailers claim cash is in short supply because of bank credit limits. Most customers are paid with checks and wire transfers.
'This is a seller-heavy market,' Tseytlin told The Post. 'We don't give cash for anything over $2,500.'
Even used Rolex watches are trading at a premium when they're made of gold — even though nobody would ever buy a Rolex to melt it down, said Paul Altieri, chief executive of Bob's Watches, one of the US's largest purveyors of pre-owned timepieces.
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5 The Diamond District on W. 47th St. is buzzing with customers eager to cash in on the high price of gold and silver.
Stefano Giovannini
'Lately we've seen more people bringing in solid-gold models like the Rolex Day-Date gold Submariners and Yacht-Masters, which contain substantial gold weight,' he said.
The Submariner can fetch from $25,000 to more than $40,000 these days, with the price of gold 'strengthening those upper ends,' Altieri said.
New York's so-called 'precious metals dealers' are licensed by the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to both buy and sell to retail customers. They also can operate special ovens that melt down gold, silver and platinum into tradable bars at 1,000-plus-degree temperatures.
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The Diamond District — mainly the block of West 47th Street that stretches between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue — is one of the last holdouts of 'Old New York,' with street urchins waving passersby inside buildings that house warrens of kiosks operated by jewelers, some with magnifying loops strapped across their foreheads.
5 Gold reached a record price of $3,500 per ounce in April.
Stefano Giovannini
Efraim Ilyayev and his father run City Gold Jeweler at 20 W. 47th St. Their stall is overflowing with silver menorahs, candlestick holders, flatware and random Judaica purchased from customers — and which are due to be melted down.
'We run out of cash all the time, which leads to unhappy customers' Ilyayev said. 'We have been getting about the same amount of cash that we have always received even though our need has increased.'
Cash on hand can mean the difference between clinching a sale or watching a client wander over to the next jeweler. Some vendors who are licensed to buy so-called 'scrap' are running out before the day is over.
'Banks don't want us to have a bunch of cash lying around,' said another jeweler, referring to the Brinks and Loomis trucks that deliver cash at least once a week.
5 Most purveyors in the Diamond District will pay cash for items worth less than $2,500.
Bullion Exchanges / X
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Jewelers says they also must grapple with customer expectations that aren't always realistic.
Alon Mirzaev of US Gold Refinery, which operates a counter at 78 W. 47th St., recently met with a customer who presented a pair of gold rings 'that had never been worn' and were still in their box. Mirzaev put them into metal analyzer machine that indicated they were 18 karat.
Mirzaev offered $500 after his initial bid of $470 was rejected. The customer wanted $750, and left in a huff — declining to be interviewed by The Post.
Meanwhile, most jewelers aren't licensed to buy goods from the public – and many are feeling the sting.
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'In general, the high price of gold works against the business because it's harder to sell' finished jewelry, said Curtis Lewis, a jeweler from Dutchess County in upstate New York who also recently brought a briefcase full of goods to West 47th Street. 'We work on close margins.'
5 Business is soft for traditional jewelers who mostly sell rather than purchase jewelry from consumers.
Stefano Giovannini
Danny Bor of Mr. Jeweler, which has a counter at 23 W. 47th St., agreed it's 'a slower time for selling jewelry,' because people don't want to pay extra for gold.
A longtime customer recently asked him to buy her gold-and-diamond tennis bracelet, but she thought the diamonds were worth more than he did. Bor — partly because she was a good client, and partly because of the value of the gold — agreed to painstakingly remove the tiny studs so she could sell them to another jeweler.
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On occasions when customers are looking to buy gold rather than sell it, it's often not jewelry that interests them.
Tysetlin's cllients last week included a 72-year-old retiree from Connecticut named Roger, who walked out with $6,000 worth of gold and silver coins inside a flannel, drawstring bag. The last time he'd purchased coins in the Diamond District was during the 1982 recession, he said.
'This is my precautionary hoarding' amid an uncertain economy, he told The Post, adding that he was looking to diversify his portfolio with a more 'stable' investment. 'Coins are a good bet.'
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