The gold business is booming with inflation: What a gold buyer experiences every day
Created: 12/20/2022, 8:41 p.m
By: Cornelia Schramm
Due to high energy prices and inflation, the gold business is booming, including gold buyer Marie Leobner in Tegernsee.
A deal between suffering and luxury.
Tegernsee – Marie Leobner, 57, has seen a lot.
But today even she is amazed.
Instead of a box, her customers, father and son, have a suitcase full of jewelry with them.
Leobner opens the wooden door to her shop.
Burglars once left deep nicks on it.
The son, in his early 50s, enters the store and pulls the suitcase behind him.
The father, in his mid-80s, follows him, leaning on a walking stick.
At first, Marie Leobner's son just wanted to send photos of the jewelry they wanted to sell.
But the gold buyer does not make an assessment like this: “Come to me.
I have to see the jewelry and examine the hallmarks and stones on site in order to be able to advise you." She jokes charmingly: "You won't be arrested for anything with me."
Gold purchases increase with the crisis - also with gold buyer Maria Leobner at Tegernsee
Marie Leobner often says this saying several times a day.
This is how she wants to take away the shyness of customers.
Heffner am See, her shop in Tegernsee (Miesbach district), is not large, but flooded with light and friendly.
In addition to jewelry, which she sells again after buying it, there is also an acrylic set of teeth decorated with a gold tooth in the shop window.
A sign reads: "I also buy dental gold with leftover teeth and buildup." Many people find it embarrassing to sell dental gold.
"But that doesn't matter on the gold scales and you get cash."
Marie Leobner in her small shop in Tegernsee.
Inflation gets her customers.
© Thomas Plettenberg
By "arrest" Leobner also means that nobody has to sell.
If someone says, "If grandpa knew," she sometimes prefers to advise against selling.
Because: If you have a guilty conscience, you may never come back.
Leobner already had the case with a woman who wanted her deceased aunt's jewelry back after a week.
By coincidence it was still there.
Lots of drama but no business.
Leobner asks no questions and has no prejudices
Buying gold is discreet.
Why someone is selling is irrelevant to Leobner.
No prejudice.
No asking.
But some tell it themselves: A woman once burst into tears because she had to sell jewelry in order to be able to buy a new washing machine.
Another customer came with a gold bar.
His car broke down.
There are also problems like this at Tegernsee.
A purchase is always the same: Leobner examines the jewelery and proposes a price.
Customers often cannot believe that the heirloom is worth much less than they had hoped.
But: If jewelry is broken or outdated, i.e. not for sale, the weight on the scales alone determines the price.
It's busier than usual at the moment. "Many customers are currently exchanging old gold, such as old jewelry, for gold coins or bars as a capital investment," says Marie Leobner.
"But with the high energy prices, many simply turn their old gold into money." The situation is similar with colleagues in the region.
This can also be observed at Pro Aurum, the largest German precious metals trading company. “Gold is always in high demand when the price is high,” says spokesman Benjamin Summa.
They want to use the jewelry to buy a tombstone
Father and son also want cash.
The jewelry belonged to her late wife and mother.
Leobner would never have asked about it.
"We want to use the money to buy my mother a new tombstone," says the son and opens the suitcase.
Rings, necklaces, brooches, bracelets and earrings are sorted in caskets and velvet bags.
The "Heffner am See" from the outside.
© Thomas Plettenberg.
Leobner opens a yellowed box: a ring, a stone the size of a hazelnut, an opulent gold wreath.
A note is included: "9.5 grams".
The son weighed all the pieces.
"The overall weight is not always decisive," says Leobner.
All pieces must be valued separately - by gold alloy and whether they are resaleable.
Leobner looks through the magnifying glass: "18 carat gold, amethyst."
Four more rings follow: a gold ring with pearls, opals and rubies.
An aquamarine art deco ring the size of Airwaves gum.
One antique opal ring and one with a bright yellow citrine.
The meticulously written notes end up in the garbage.
Leobner has to be focused.
If they judge wrongly, it can cost them hundreds, today even thousands of euros.
She checks diamonds with a device that looks like a pistol.
Today it flashes green.
Real diamonds.
That's not always like that.
Sometimes there are "valuable heirlooms" on the sales counter, but the device does not blink.
Means: great-grandmother's diamond ring is made of glass.
"Customers are then very disappointed," says Leobner.
And the reactions are always different: laughter, anger, tears.
She learned to read people through her business
There are also happy days: Leobner recently paid an 80-year-old 3,000 euros.
"The lady almost fell over in surprise." The purchase price is based on the daily gold price, the gram price on the alloy.
One share is Leobner's commission.
With scrap gold, weight matters.
© Thomas Plettenberg
Marie Leobner has acquired her knowledge herself in the 17 years that she has had her shop.
Just like reading people.
She quickly has to assess who is sitting in front of her.
She's already had dubious offers - and has "learned the hardship".
For a wrong bracelet once 500 euros.
"I should have filed it down, but I wanted to sell it intact," she says.
But the very next day, a man with the same bracelet stood in front of her.
He really wanted to sell.
She brushed him off.
gut feeling.
Because of her misjudgment, Leobner was quickly targeted by criminals.
Several people then offered her fake gold.
"It's my risk.
I don't have to buy what's put in front of me," she says.
After the shock of that time, she now files everything or does the acid test.
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Tegernsee newsletter.
"Keep it as a souvenir" - sometimes selling gold is also discouraged
Same with father and son.
Some of the jewels in her suitcase are unmarked but genuine.
Leobner assumes that they come from the Orient.
"My parents are from Saudi Arabia," says the son.
"They bought jewelry while traveling."
A charm bracelet full of souvenirs now lies in front of the gold buyer.
The son recognizes a pendant: the golden dachshund was once a souvenir for him.
"Keep it as a souvenir," says Leobner.
"He's not heavy.
We'll get enough today."
Then the son digs out one of the most bizarre pieces that Leobner ever had: a bracelet made of braided human hair from 1831. "A case for an auction house," she says.
"Too good for the oven, too special to resell." It goes back in the case, like some obsolete pieces from big-name jewelers.
Leobner recommends a jewel exchange for the sale.
Marie Leobner pays father and son 5,410 euros for scrap gold today.
They also part with two rings, a brooch and a coral pendant.
Too much memory hangs on the rest – or the prices quoted are too low.
Father and son left Marie Leobner's shop with 6,610 euros.
The suitcase is still full.
The tombstone but now paid for.
You can find more current news from the district of Miesbach and the Tegernsee region at Merkur.de/Miesbach.