Tamara Romanenko thought she’d found an easy way to clear out old jewelry when a glossy flyer landed in her St. Augustine mailbox this month.
The mailer advertised a multi-day gold and collectibles show at the Hilton Historic Bayfront.
“We got the flyer for the roadshow in our mailbox, and we looked at that and thought we’d go and check it out,” she said.
Romanenko, who lives in St. Augustine half the year, says she and her husband weighed their bracelets, pendants, and rings at home using a jewelry scale and estimated the value at about $7,000 based on karat and current gold prices.
At the Hilton, she says buyers first offered around $3,200 for the lot, then raised it to $6,000 only after she began to leave. “They were trying to take advantage of us. It’s a scam to go there,” she said.
A spokesperson for the gold-buying road show advertised on Romanenko’s flyer said the company did not interact with her.
“There were three companies operating out of the hotel, including ours, and to the best of our knowledge, we did not deal with this individual,” the spokesperson said. “It could have been one of the other two companies.”
Traveling buying events visit St. Augustine roughly four times a year, setting up in hotel ballrooms for a few days before moving on.
A 2012 multi-city CBS News investigation into hotel gold-buying “roadshows” found some traveling merchants initially offering sellers less than a quarter of the jewelry’s value.
With gold prices at record highs — climbing past $4,000 an ounce this year at one point — every gram of old jewelry is more valuable than ever, raising the stakes when sellers walk into a hotel ballroom to cash in.
Local jewelers say they’re increasingly worried residents are leaving those events with far less than their heirlooms are worth.
Romanenko walked out of the hotel show and took her jewelry to The Vault and Co., where owner Bryan Ventre weighed and tested the pieces in front of her.
She says he paid about $7,600. Ventre says her story matches what he’s seen for years.
“They write the words Seen on TV because they’re trying to make people think they’re the Antiques Roadshow, but that can’t be any further from the truth. It’s more like an antique scam show,” he said, adding that for him, “It’s about trust.”
Ventre says he has spoke with St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office about the roadshows in the past, and they said a detective would be in touch.
He questions whether some out-of-town buyers follow state laws that require valuables to be held for 30 days before being resold or melted down in case the items are stolen.
”People who are not from this town can rob you and go to the next town. They’ve been doing it for 20 years, I’ve seen it my whole career,” he said.
Across town, Daniel Buchanan of The Jewelry Hospital doesn’t buy gold — he only repairs it — but says he’s concerned about the issue.
“I want to see people treated fairly when I do their repairs. I don’t want my customers getting ripped off,” he said. Buchanan tells people they should understand what they have before they sell.
“You can pawn a wedding ring 1,000 times, but you can only sell it once. Make a good decision before you act,” he said.
