I probably shouldn’t write this, but I’m going to. Vintage Cash Cow. Do you, have you, will you?
If you have, or might then maybe some of what follows will give you pause.
What did you/might you send? Jewellery?
VCC have an ‘interesting’ (which is not the same as fair) way of dealing with gold jewellery. I'm told it all gets priced the same, today at £20 per gram. So whether you send in 18ct, 22ct 15ct or 9ct, it all gets valued using that artificially low price. So if, for example, you send them an 18 carat gold diamond and sapphire engagement ring that possibly cost a couple of thousand or more, today they’ll pay you around £60. As I type the 9ct real price is around £35/g.
So your mums 22ct gold wedding band that weighs (let’s say) 2.5g should net you (from me, say) around £200. With VCC you might get £50, or 25% of its value. Which means that VCC could make £150 out of you just by scrapping the ring. But hold on! That’s not all, they can make more, simply by selling it though their own auction house (I know the name – do you?) and without any fees to pay they might make even more. Out of your loss.
Its almost impossible to comprehend how much stuff they get every day. We are talking lorry loads, not odd envelopes or small boxes. We are talking bucket after bucket full to the brim of jewellery, hundreds of meters of shelves bulging with your precious items, and thousands of people each missing out on hundred of pounds every single day.
But what if its not jewels? What about, oh let’s say cameras? They give you perhaps £30 for a camera. A Leica for example. A digital Leica. Worth what, a thousand? More? But you accepted thirty quid. Thirty!
And so it goes on. Everything you send them is deliberately massively undervalued. On average they seem to pay about 10% of the value you should get. And if you quibble when they send you the quote, they don't argue, you just get it sent back. If you don’t like their rules, they take you out of the game.
As far as I know they don’t do anything illegal, but they do prove the (new) epithet that apparently you can fool all of the people all of the time. If you use them, why?! Yes they pay quickly. Wouldn't you if you were getting things at roughly 10% of their value. You’d act so you don't give the suckers time to realise they’ve been conned.
Honestly if you use them I hope the loss hurts, because you deserve it. You’ve fallen for a modern con, and its not just VCC: there are dozens of wide boys and companies booking out hotel rooms to jump on the VCC bandwagon.
Just stop, think and don’t do it!
Go to your local antiques dealer and ask them first. Try your local auction rooms and see what they say. Yes it's easy to send stuff off to VCC, but at what cost?!
