Americans sit on US$140 billion

 

Type of Items	Average # of unused items per US adult
Rings	1.1
Necklaces	0.89
Earrings	0.80 (1 = a pair of earrings)
Bracelets	0.58
Other	1.11

                                              

Americans own, but never wear, around one billion pieces of gold and gold jewellery valued at around US$140 billion, according to a new survey by TNS Global Market Research on behalf of Gold Promise, a US-based gold buying company.

 The average respondent in the online survey of 1000 American men and women claimed to own, but not wear, around 4.5 pieces of jewellery valued at approximately US$604.

The survey found that 44.3 percent of the respondents have gold, jewellery or diamonds they no longer wear (34.1 percent of men, 54.5 percent of women). The respondents that have unused jewellery estimated that, on average, the items they do not wear are worth about US$1364).

“It’s clear many people have money stashed in their jewellery boxes and drawers in the form of unused and even forgotten jewellery,” said Gold Promise president Keith Weinberger.

“These pieces represent a staggering amount of money that could be saved, used to pay down bills or applied toward holiday shopping budgets.”

The results also show that consumers’ unused jewellery spans multiple categories, with no one type of jewelry item more likely to be sitting at the bottom of a drawer – the average respondent had unused rings (1.1), necklaces (0.89), earrings (0.8), bracelets (0.58) and ‘other’ including pins, pendants, watches, etc (1.11).

Weinberger concluded that while there is clearly a significant amount of gold not being worn by people across the country, “respondents may be basing their estimates of the value of their jewellery on what they paid for it” rather than the actual resale value (based on gold content).