Fools Gold

Long forgotten about at the back of a draw I finally found what I had been searching nearly an hour for. A small plastic box, square and black, inside cotton wool and laying on top of that a gold ring. I had bought the ring many years ago whilst on holiday in Greece with my family. I wore it for a while but then got bored, took it off placed it at the back of this draw for safe keeping and here it lay untouched till now. I now have a far more important ring on my finger so could see no point in keeping the other. It held no sentimental value, a little extra cash to spend on holiday would be nice and with the gold price currently at a 20 year high it seemed like an opportune time to liquidate.

The obvious place to start seemed to be the internet and true to form good old internet came up trumps again. With the help of my kitchen scales I weighed the ring, typed in the numbers and out came the figure. I figured that this was probably a best you can get figure and in reality would turn out to be some what smaller but it was a start and everyone needs a start. Hearing too many bad stories about people sending things through the post to shonky companies and not entrusting Royal mail to safely deliver anything other than a circular I decided the best thing was to head to Londons gold epicenter of Hatton Gardens and try my luck there. The big cheese and I had been a while ago to get our aforementioned rings, at the time I had not noticed but now the words sore and thumb sprang to mind. Even the guys without women had guys with them, maybe for moral support or maybe to bare witness to the price tag. Either way I had to walk the gauntlet of leaflet touts trying to show disinterest but at the same time ascertain which might give me the best price with the least amount of hassle. In the end it came down to nothing more scientific than judging books from their covers and having seen a window display that looked similar to the ring I had I went in only to be handed another leaflet.
"Are you looking to buy anything specific today" said the woman brandishing the leaflets
"I have an item that I might want to sell" I said trying to play it cool
"SAINF.........SAINF" the young woman shouted up a large stairwell.
A head popped over the railing
"Can you show this gentleman to the office please"
So Sanif came down and we set off up 10 flights of stairs to their fifth floor office. Apparently the lift was out of service. At this point I should have seen the omen and made my excuses but at that point the non descript door in front of us buzzed open and the moment of flight had gone.

Inside, the office was tiny and this was made all the more apparent by the plentiful supply of people employed there. The whole place had the aroma of a fish curry recently consumed at ones desk but trapped in a tiny space by the lack of circulating air the smell was completely numb to the curry's consumers. A fat man sitting fully reclined in a cheap swivel chair motioned me from the door over the one and half meter distance to his desk. He had a neck brace on and looked one cat short of a Bollywood bond super villain fallen on hard times. I produced the box and gave him the ring which he tossed from hand to hand for a while then held aloft his free hand open palmed and without a word being said a loupe was placed in it by one of the employees standing through lack of space less than a meter away. His face screwed up a bit and then someone else entered the room came over sat in a chair next to gold finger's less fortunate brother, at which point I became completely invisible. For a full 3-4 minutes I no longer existed in that room, no manner of attempted eye contact, shuffling in my chair or huffing could make me reappear. It was clear they had plans for world domination to formulate, probably involving the use of a satellite and big lazer as it became apparent all business had been suspended. I had to grab an assistant who was, due to the rooms dimensions, situated just over a meter from me to try and prize my item from gold fingers grasp. He did so and handed it to another employee stood behind a counter on the opposing wall. He weighed it three times and came up with three different weights and chose the lightest (naturally) on which to base his "best price." I protested weakly that the weights were different only to be told with no sense of irony it was because the scales were so accurate. At that point I just wanted out and they wanted to barter I named a ridiculous price he named another and we parted ways neither of us any the richer.

I pounded the streets a while longer visiting the shops I had scoped out earlier. All were looking to give me roughly the same price give or take ten pounds. Resigning myself to have found the true market value I went in the last shop and offered up my treasure. I was handed another leaflet on the way in and directed to a counter on the left and greeted by a cockney geezer straight from the set of a Guy Richie film. Much like being on holiday I got the gist of the conversation by listening out for key words and waiting for pauses in to which a response was expected. I was only able to respond in my native language but he seemed fine with that. I rationed I had said the right thing in the correct place because he pulled out a set of scales. He weighed it and went through the same procedure everyone else had, asking me how much I had been offered else where. I added £10 to the best price and asked what price he would pay. The next bit was difficult to decipher but the key words I gleamed were "All of the money", " Top end", "Treasure in the attic" and the price. It was £10 higher than anywhere else so I said yes at which point he pulled a stack of £50 notes large enough to knock out a man from under the counter before he realised he didn't need this stack and changed it for an equally large stack of £20's. He peeled a few from the top placed them in an envelope and in true cockney style we shook on a good deal done.

Now for that holiday.