Forty-four years of the same questions, answered properly and written down. Everything here is free, none of it requires you to buy anything, and quite a lot of it will tell you when not to sell to us.
That isn't a slogan, it's arithmetic. Somebody who already knows what a troy ounce is, why their 14k isn't 14k, and that nobody pays full melt takes fifteen minutes at the counter instead of an hour — and leaves happier. So we'd rather you read all this first.
The live Kitco New York board — bid, ask and session range — plus a karat melt calculator that works out exactly what's in your gold. Know the ceiling before you walk into any shop in this Valley, ours included.
Read it →How the Sheldon 1–70 grading scale works, what a key date is, why that tiny mint mark is worth thousands, how to store a collection — and the four-second mistake that destroys more value than theft and fire combined.
Read it →How to prepare, what to bring, and six signs you should walk out of a shop — written by a buyer, which should make you suspicious enough to check every claim in it. Please do.
Read it →Does a pawn loan hurt my credit? Will you pay what my ring is appraised at? Should I clean my coins first? The questions we answer at the counter every single day, answered the way we'd answer them standing in front of you.
Read it →Toning is what collectors pay for. A polish can't be undone, and graders spot it instantly.
Including us. Anyone promising 100% of melt is making it back where you can't see.
A $6,000 appraisal is replacement retail. It is not a $6,000 cheque from anybody.
People bin the good stuff and carry in the worthless stuff. Bring all of it.
Kitco New York spot — the same figures our buyers read every morning before the doors open. Full prices and the melt calculator →
He hung Fresno's history on the Showroom walls because he found it interesting and wanted other people to find it interesting too. That's the whole explanation for this section of the site.
Coin collecting runs on knowledge that used to pass across a counter, from somebody who'd been doing it thirty years to somebody who'd been doing it three weeks. When the shops close, that transfer stops.
Steve Foster Jr. sits on the board of the Fresno Numismatic Society, the Foundation at Fresno County Office of Education, and the California Pawnbrokers Association — working to raise the standard of an industry that has, historically, needed it.
We're not pretending this is charity. A customer who understands the trade argues less, trusts more, and comes back for twenty years. Geoff Spornhauer discovered us over twenty years ago and won't buy jewelry anywhere else. Stephanie Niewohner's father told her this was the place to go for an honest deal, and now she brings her own family.
That's what the education is for. It compounds.
Genuinely — if something here doesn't match what you find at another counter, we'd like to know. That's how we've stayed honest since 1982.
