I think you’re right. The article I read the other day? It said that Rick was selling similar gold coins in his own shop for thousands of dollars. So why did he melt down this “scrap gold”?
Pawn shops generally buy at 50 cents on the dollar. Then double that as a quick sale retail price. If they paid $12,000 for the gold and got maybe 24-25 thousand in return for the scrap value, then they made a good deal. Could they later have held on to the coins for months and maybe gotten $30,000?
Who knows?
If the show is to be believed,(and therein lies the rub), Harrison bought an old Lincoln that the guy wanted 100,000 for.
They agreed on 90,000 if the shop paid him in gold. Harrison gave him 60 one ounce gold coins for the car as the price of gold that day was 1,500 per ounce. So, in that instance, Harrison figured that the coins were only worth their spot gold value.
When I worked in a coin shop I saw it happen a few times.
This was when gold was close to $2,000.00 an ounce and the coins were European. Still, they looked MS to me but the buyer had them scrapped.
I can only imagine how many fine coins were scrapped during all the times silver prices were high.
I have been a coin collector for a long time. I have NEVER run across a gold coin that was not worth MORE than the gold it contained. Never.There may be a mistaken presumption that these were coins with some collectible value. But I don't think that has been established. Perhaps they were something like standard APMEX gold rounds (1oz or less)? Would those sorts of gold coins ever be worth more than the spot price?