Corridor startup offers another option to sell metal

With gold prices soaring due to inflation worries in recent years, more businesses have joined the buying fray.

North Liberty businessman Matt Gibson is among those hoping to help owners part with their treasures. This year, he opened The Gold Estate, with locations in Cedar Rapids and Coralville. The stores allow gold owners, seven days a week, to get quick offers on their items without making appointments.

Gibson is going one step further with another new concept. Instead of bringing gold to the office, Gibson's “Sophia's Gold” business conducts house parties. Ten or 15 invited guests bring jewelry in zip-lock bags to have it evaluated, and receive offers. Payments are made by check to reduce security risks.

The biggest purchase made through Sophia's Choice so far was $1,500, Gibson said.

The first Gold Estate store opened in mid-January at 860 22nd Ave., Coralville. The second opened Feb. 1 at 5001 First Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. The company plans to open its third and fourth locations in Dubuque and Waterloo within 60 days, and its fifth location in the Quad Cities within 90 days.

Gibson wants to open

10 stores this year and another 15 in 2011 throughout the

country.

Gibson got the idea for the business when he thought about the number of people selling gold to mail-in buyers, who advertise heavily on television.

If jewelry owners are willing to risk sending their gold through the mail just to get an offer from a complete stranger, he reasoned, they'd probably be much happier sitting down face-to-face with a local buyer without the gold ever leaving their presence.

“The whole premise is to approach the business with a different business model, and put a face to it and make it more transparent,” Gibson said.

Customers watch the testing and weighing process.

“It's a no-pressure evaluation,” Gibson said. “We wanted it to feel like the experience you might have buying jewelry.”

Gibson said most of the items purchased are broken or mismatched jewelry that have been sitting unused for years.

Owners also bring in a fair number of jewelry items that have lost their sentimental value through a divorce or severed relationship, or that they feel they must part with due to financial circumstances.

“Some people say, “just get it out of my life,” Gibson said.

One of the strangest items The Gold Estate bought was a gold tooth cap - the tooth still attached, Gibson said.

Gibson isn't a newcomer to business start-ups. His first business venture was Iguana's Comic Book Cafe in Iowa City. His second was a retail store, Reminisce Scrapbook, that sold scrapbooking supplies. He still is involved in Designs by Reminisce, a North Liberty manufacturer of scrapbook supplies, with his wife.

The gold business ranks near the top in terms of fun, Gibson said.

“It's exciting,” Gibson said. “Every day, every customer, is new.”