I decided to start collecting precious metals recently, I wanted something tangible since I've only been investing in stocks and crypto. What I had in mind was a wholly different world and it's a funny thought, I was expecting a jewelry store with bright lights with glimmer all over the walls but that was just my childhood memories when my dad took me with him to a jewelry store to get something for my mom. I already had some gold and only 1oz of silver but, wanted more and committing to invest in it per month. When getting in, I sat down in a waiting lobby with my wife, we wanted check out our first place to buy precious metals and believed that this place had to be it. We were greeted by Ron, he's an amazing and enthusiastic man to work with. He made it easy to understand when breaking down their website on how it displays the spot prices, and that an American Eagle is an American Eagle when I asked what would affect the value when I mentioned specific things like age, cleaning or rusting and or what Ron told me about oxidation. Today, I was impressed with the service that I had to drag my wife into it from the waiting lobby (haha). I had to make sure that my judgement wasn't too bias on picking clean or some age or oxidized coins. Since I didn't do research on what were the payment methods, I wanted to pay with a credit card to build up cash back but, if it was card, it had to be debit. Ron was great, I'll try to commit visiting monthly here or the one at Fremont for silver and soon gold. read more

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Come to XRF test for a silver tea pot, the staff is very friendly and knowledgeable, I recommend this business read more

Pacific Precious Metals - Investing Near Me - Palo Alto, California

We took a number of our items collected over the years from family, including silverware, bowls, etc. Ron helped us while we were there and was super friendly, patient, and a delight to work with. read more

The person who helped me out was pretty rude and presumed to know why I was asking questions.

I have been to see Todd several times to move along some broken pieces of sterling and gold. He is patient honest and takes quality time and answer questions, as I was a new person to sell precious metals. For example, I had an 18k white gold band inside a lot of sterling to be melted. He put it aside and mentioned it and verified the gold content. Today he verified metal content of a recent purchase for me, which was 0 % gold . He also verified some 14 karat gold pieces today as a courtesy which I really appreciate. He is my go to place for Precious metals now ! Thank you, Todd at Pacific Precious Metals. read more

Transaction went easy and fair. I would do business again with them. Also like their longer business hours.

Todd helped me was very quick and efficient and nice :) would recommend!! I was selling some gold and got a good price and again was very quick read more

I'm going to say that always get a second bid from another dealer if you have an assortment of medals and coins to sell. The hired "expert" appraised my total a bit south of 10k. Went to another shop (Mish) and their appraisal and purchase price was 19k. PPM even declared that over 30 medals I had were pewter and others sterling and not .999 silver. That said, unless you have truly common trade like coins, Id not pull the trigger on any offer from PPM. Make an appointment and go to get another appraisal from a shop like Mish. Maybe it was the appraiser but she told me she had over 10 years experience. Maybe so but certainly no experience with medallions or non coin collectable metals. read more

I have nothing but praise for the help I was given and the patience of the staff at Pacific Precious Metals. They helped me identify a counterfeit Morgan silver dollar. They knew that I was there for clarity for a coin that I purchased online and it was clear that they wouldn't make any money dealing with me however, Todd gave me first class service and he able to show the coin was fake. I will be buying coins from this shop in the future because of the trust I walked away with. read more

I came in to this location a couple weeks ago to have around 50 items XRF tested for gold content. The expert - Todd !! - was INCREDIBLE and kind, knowledgeable and patient. I literally could not have asked for a better customer service experience. HIGHLY highly recommend selling and buying your gold here. Absolutely wonderful business. Incomparable. A+++ read more

I visited the Palo Alto location today and was really impressed. It is a comfortable and professional environment. As everyone knows gold and silver prices have reached all time highs recently, so if you have pieces you might be interested in scrapping, you should stop by. Todd's knowledge spans jewelry, coins, antiques, etc. I agree with the other reviews that the business is transparent and ethical. I will be a return customer! read more

I would give Pacific Precious Metals 10 stars if I could. The woman who helped me was professional and kind. When she realized the quality of the gold bracelet I was ready to sell for scrap, she suggested that I check with a jewelry buyer who might offer a better price. I did as she suggested and did receive an even higher offer, which I gladly accepted. I was amazed that she was so transparent about suggesting this to me. I will definitely return when I have other precious metals to sell. It's clear that this company is ethical, conscientious, and will give you an extremely fair price for your metals. They also have delicious treats available on the table! read more

When you walk in, the place looks like a visitation area in prison. The walls are bare and the staff sits behind glass windows (there were two of them) that you have to talk through. Most importantly, people didn't seem very in interested talking to you. Also, they charge you $35 for just doing an appraisal which will only be waived if you sell your jewelry to them. Who would pay for an appraisal when there's no guarantee that they would even give you a fair price? The establishment gave off a shady pawn shop vibe and seemed out of place in a nice Palo Alto neighborhood. I was happy to walk out of the place. There are plenty of other places in the area that are more friendly and actually pleasant to work with. [Updating the review in response to the business' comment] First of all, they copied and pasted private conversations without my consent, and I reported this to Yelp. Yes, they did tell me about the XRF, but I knew I wouldn't need it as I knew the weights of my gold items and the purity on all but one item. For that one item, I wasn't 100% sure if it was 24k, and you don't need an X-Ray analysis to make the determination. When the person behind the glass repeated that $35 nonsense (and he acted as if he'd rather not talk to anyone), I decided it was best to walk out rather than continue dealing with the person. You can check out my other reviews, and you'll see where I ended up taking my business. read more

Came in to test a couple pieces of Gold jewelry, they were kind enough to use the XRF machine to see gold content in jewelry.

Todd is the man!!! always coming through keeping me informed of deals and gets back to me as promise. This place is an honest bullion and precious metals dealer. Customer Service is A+++++++ If you're looking to buy precious metals, this is the place to go! Chris "XRP" read more

This place barely is a coin shop. For one it's literally an empty room, for two the guy behind the glass has no idea what he is talking about. Avoid read more

I came here to test some gold and I have to say, the customer service was amazing. What's nice is that they're able to identify the gold with their XRF gun and if you sell them gold, the service is free. I was greeted by Anagha and I was able to have them test all my gold. Anagha was friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. I really had a good experience! If you have gold to sell or test, this place is it! It was worth the visit. read more

Ron helped me out. Great service. Very happy with my experience. They don't rush you. There really isn't a glass display counter so everything is not out in the open. Items are seen thru the glass wall. I guess it's better security that way. I'm ok with being safe. Will come back! read more

The good is that they seem to have the highest buy back price in the Bay Area, but don't have much Cash available,so they want to give you a post dated check. I did sell small amounts to them around 1k at different times,I've been to PA and the Fremont Office, and they are pleasant and professional. read more

While recently searching for a verified precious metals dealer/appraiser, I was fortunate enough to discover Pacific Precious Metals online. I quickly determined this business would be my best source of precious metal analysis of my items. When I finally made the trip up the coast to Palo Alto, I made a point of visiting the Pacific Precious Metals facility on Middlefield Road. As I presented my materials for evaluation, all my reservations about possible difficulties in the process were alleviated. The professional staff listened to my request and asked the important questions for providing the most appropriate services. Throughout the process, I was treated with absolute courtesy and respect. My questions were answered thoroughly and suggestions were offered that indicated a sincere desire to assist with my needs. I'm able to confidently recommend Pacific Precious Metals to anyone looking for the best service of their precious metal needs. read more

Service above and beyond. I cannot recommend PPM more highly. From first contact with Robin to Mike the boss up to the CEO, all demonstrated impeccable integrity and nonnegotiable honor. We made a transaction error with them, and they could have legally kept our funds to their clear advantage. To our relief, they were all committed to do the right thing, help their customer, and return the funds that were given to them by mistake. I'm a former Army officer, prosecutor and ethics investigator, and I cannot commend PPM's operating principles and people more highly. They proved themselves to be cosmically above the competition. Thank you, PPM people. read more

The service at the Fremont location was the best. I needed to sell some silver to help cover the cost of a funeral. I got a good price for them. The employee who helped me was very professional and personable. I really felt comfortable dealing with him. I've referred this business to people I know. They are an exceptional business to today business with. read more

Pacific Precious Metals is amazing. Whenever I'm looking for bullion coins, they beat the price of the online guys, and I can pick up the coin in person. Todd's always super helpful, and I love seeing the interesting coins they get in. read more

Everyone is friendly and they offer the fairest prices when selling gold and silver. Have sold to them 3x now with no complaints

Had a good experience at Pacific Precious Metals on a number of occasions. Easy to work with and always have good inventory.

Pacific Precious Metals is the only place to trade in your gold! Todd is your go to guy - always willing to go the extra mile to help his clients! I recommend Todd and his team without any reservations!! read more

Pacific Precious Metals Palo Alto is the great company to deal with. I have been with them for years. Good products always got a fair price when purchasing Precious Metals. Would highly recommend to anyone looking to invest in previous Metals. read more

I went to Pacific Precious Metals to get a reading on a couple of pieces of gold and Anagha K.was most helpful on taking the readings and showing me the results. She was also prompt at providing an estimate for the monetary value of my gold samples. I would highly recommend this place for their excellent customer service. read more

All good experiences here! I've been here a number of times and they have been professional, knowledgeable and kind every time. Anaga (hope I'm spelling that right) is always very professional and a pleasure to do business with. I'll see you again soon! read more

I highly recommend Pacific Precious Metals (PPM) for all your precious metal analysis needs. Prior to PPM, I usually went to local pawn shops to verify the gold content of specific jewelry pieces with XRF analysis. Honestly I wasn't very happy with them as they would never print out the analyses for me or explain the technology and common pitfalls. I found PPM after googling for alternative XRF testing services in the Bay Area. I called PPM beforehand to confirm that they were open and that their XRF analyzer was working. I brought a few pieces of jewelry to be analyzed and I was very impressed by their professionalism and knowledge. Todd (the manager) was very kind and analyzed all the jewelry for me - we tested several spots on each piece and they printed out the analysis each time. He would explain how the machine works - what its limitations are (eg it can only read 'x' microns deep into the object) and we would look at the spectrograph together. The machine can "overcall" noise as true peaks relating to specific elements so one must actually zoom in on the spectrograph to determine if a low concentration (eg 1%) element is actually present or not. (This is probably too much information for a review but I just want to demonstrate the quality of the service here). Overall, an excellent place to go to for precious metals testing. They also have more testing services than just XRF but for mixed metal content like jewelry - this is my preferred "go to" method as it's non-destructive. Their prices are also very reasonable and worth the investment if you plan to resell your jewelry. Will definitely be back in the future! 5 Stars! read more

Pacific Precious Metals - XRF analysis printout of piece of gold jewelry. - Investing Near Me - Palo Alto, California

I have been doing business with PPM for many years, even when they were a long drive (for me, a Palo Alto resident) way down in Cupertino. I've dealt with a variety of vendors, including the mail order ones like APMEX, but PPM is pretty much the only one I work with now. I was surprised to see any 1 star reviews in this Yelp profile, and I read them; they seem to be from people who were upset that the store wasn't doing handsprings with excitement about whatever it was they had brought into the store. Daniel is a low-key, soft-spoken person, so just because someone doesn't have an aneurysm because you've decided to have a look-see inside their establishment is no reason to diss them. The only negative I'd say about gold in general (which has nothing to do specifically with PPM) is the bid/ask spread is super-wide. If you buy a $2,000 coin and turn around one second later to sell it, you'll get something like $1,900. For someone like myself used to penny-wide spreads in active financial markets, this takes a bit of getting used to. But the bullion market was never meant for day trading. It's really the kind of thing where you intend to buy and hold for YEARS, so the price spread should hopefully be fairly irrelevant. read more

We went into this place with my son who is 13 years old and really knows his stuff when it comes to silver and gold. He had bought a bunch of pieces from various garage sales and estate sales that he wanted to sell. He knew it was worth more than $200 maybe $300 based on previous sales he had made. He was offered about $25 for all of it. What really bothered me was that there was a sign outside that said that said that they buy diamonds. One of the items had a bunch of diamonds in it. My son asked what about the diamonds. They said "our compensation does not include value for the diamonds " (it was a very odd turn of phrase so he must've been coached on how to say this). My son again said there's a sign outside that says that you buy diamonds. He just repeated the same phrase. It's like they decided that they wanted to get the diamonds, but they're not gonna pay for them. Nevertheless, we gathered up our stuff and we left. I wouldn't go back. read more

I was very disappointed when I drove all the way over to this PPM with gold flakes and rock veined with gold and was greeted by a man who seemed completely uninterested in feeding into the excitement that my 11-year-old son and I brought into his store. I found what looked like gold in an area that has documented gold mines so my son and I took a long time to sort, separate, and clean some of the more tarnished pieces. We did all of the home tests aside from the acid test (which will be done) and each test seemed to indicate that this metal is more likely to be gold than it is fools gold (no magnetism, yellow streak on white unglazed ceramic tile and black rock, drops rather immediately to bottom of glass of water, cleans up bright to a gold hue/ sometimes silver hue. I still understand that realistically there's a good chance that this metal is something besides gold. But PPM advertises that they will test your metals with their high tech equipment as a courtesy. So when my son and I come in, the guy doesn't let me s get past the entry foyer, he takes about a 3 second glance at best at our container, then shoves it back at me stating that it's pyrite. I told him about the testing we did at home (doesn't pyrite attach to magnets? Does it turn yellow when streaking white ceramic or black rock?), but he very curtly shut me down anyways. What a shame that he couldn't even take the time to test it as advertised and allow my son to enjoy his excitement and watch him test it. It's not like there was a single other customer in there that he had to attend to. Whatever... So here I am days later with a ton of "non-magnetic pyrite that streaks yellow", but still absolutely no confirmation one way or the other on what it could possibly be if it's not gold or pyrite. Would've been worth our time, effort, and gas to have him take a minute to test it for us so that atleast we could know for sure. Instead, I'm ordering the acid test and I'll find out on my own that it isn't gold if that's the case. Thanks for all the info and for making my son and i feel like we're idiots wasting our time and NOT taking the time to do the advertised complimentary gold test that could have been super cool for my son to watch and learn more about as he's starting a new hobby of gold hunting- down south. read more

Pacific Precious Metals - Pyrite or gold? We never got the test to confirm one way or the other. - Investing Near Me - Palo Alto, California

Everything was incredibly easy. I will definitely go back if I ever am looking to sell again. I had an old gold eagle coin. I did some internet research and was surprised to learn that these coins do not have much value beyond their spot price weight (shows how little I know). I found some vendors selling/buying on different websites all for similar range of prices. I sent a message to PPM to ask them if they are interested in buying and what price I could expect. They responded quickly and very friendly, very clear and transparent that they are happy to buy and they list the price on their website, it is fixed to the current spot price and updated in real time. They also told me that I should feel free to look around but selling online would likely take a steep fee. That matched what I had seen from my limited research. They told me to come in anytime no appt needed. I went to the Palo Alto location. It is a nice location right next to a Wells Fargo bank. They buzzed me in immediately and we're very friendly. Within 2 minutes I had sold the coin and received cash and was out the door. Great! read more

Like me, you might have trouble finding the place at first. Suite 270 is on the second floor of the shopping center, right above US Bank. It's a one-person office with a desk, a walk-in safe and small waiting area. Don't expect a showroom or display cases. Regardless of whether you're selling or buying, you should feel safe - cameras and security were quite visible. Todd is knowledgeable and low pressure. I had two old rings to sell - there was no sentimental value to them so I thought I might as well get rid of them. Todd quickly assessed that one of them was gold plated. To be sure, he used a therm metal analysis tester -- it looks like a ray gun from old movies -- and it convinced him there was very little gold in the ring and therefore not worth buying. The other ring verified as 18 carat so he made me an offer for it. Given the price of gold, it didn't seem like quite enough so I asked for 10% more. After a short discussion, we shook hands on a deal. Of course, then I had to do the legal stuff like filling out a form, giving him my thumbprint, etc. All in all, this was a good experience and I believe I was treated fairly. read more

Pacific Precious Metals is my prefered metals dealer, in the Bay Area. The Cupertino showroom is small and highly secure, which fosters comfortable privacy and attention. I recommend calling before your visit to ensure appointment availability, as well as to affirm inventory, if you're looking for something specific. As for brokers, I always elect to work with Todd Stagnaro -- he is exceptionally knowledgeable, works tirelessly to perform, and forges a true business-relationship. In the three years I've been working with PPM, Todd has been invariably patient in answering questions and advising, as well as taking the time and care to verify my acquisitions. I couldn't be more satisfied. read more

Many gold and jewelry buyers are scam artists or are jokers a la "Pawn Stars" looking to buy cheap and sell dear. Not PPM. PPM staff are professional and if you are looking to buy or sell bullion coins or bars PPM actually posts their "Buy" and "Sell" prices online so there are no surprises when it is time to close the deal. You can determine how fair a dealer is through their Bid and Ask spread. The tighter the spread the less of a cut they are making on the trade. A fair dealer will have a spread of less than 4% and at current prices PPM's spread is about 3%. Considering that they take on the carry risk this is a very fair spread indeed. I have added PPM to my short list of precious metal dealers and highly recommend them if you are looking to buy or sell bullion. They also trade in diamonds, silver/gold jewelry and flatware but I have not done business with them in any of these items so have no recommendation except to say that if they are as fair in these items as they are with bullion than you will be in good hands. read more

Pacific Precious Metals - Located in a strip mall on the second story - Investing Near Me - Palo Alto, California

I did not have a pleasant experience. I was greeted by a man who asked what I was looking for, in which i replied: A few 1/10th gold eagles", and his response was: "Oh so youre not a serious buyer" and something along the lines of "You can go on our website and see what we have." HOW RUDE IS THAT??? Mind you, I am a 20 year old college student who can't afford to be spending tens of thousands of dollars on precious metals. After stating I was willing to spend a couple thousand dollars, the man lightened his tone a bit and became more willing to work with me, but at that point, I did not want to do business here. Any person who walks through your doors should be treated respectfully and not based on their budget, not matter how big or small. read more

Rare 5 star. Needed jewelry authentication assistance and looked for companies with stellar reviews to contact for help. Connected with Preston from Pacific Precious Metals because of their great Yelp ratings. Preston is now my go to guy, his knowledge of the jewelry trade combined with an awesome personality take his customer service to the next level. Would highly recommend Preston at Pacific Precious Metals, all around great experience he works Mon-Fri go hit him up. I look forward to visiting the new shop in Palo Alto on 2778 Middlefield Rd. In the New Year 2021 after the move. read more

I have been using PPM as my Gold source for a few years. They are very attentive, organized and provide a great service. The place is very safe, use mask and disinfectants. You may also place your order online and later pick it up or have it delivered. read more