Your son or daughter will graduate high school or college in a few weeks. And you’re thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I gave that grad an old item of family jewelry that’s been sitting around for years?”

It could be grandpa’s old gold pocket watch, or a wedding ring that once was worn by your mother. Well, aren’t you being generous? Yes, you are. But before you make that generous gift, here’s a piece of advice:

Did you know that Queen Victoria, who ruled Great Britain from 1837 until her death in 1901, was buried with a lot of her favorite pieces of jewelry?

She personally selected the items of jewelry that she wanted to be buried with her. They included pieces of jewelry that had been given to her by her late husband Prince Albert, as well as a number of bracelets and other items that held personal value for her.

How much were these items worth? We don’t know. But we do know one thing about them . . .

Frankly, we do not completely understand why the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one of the greatest art museums in the world, has chosen to host its annual Met Gala. The coverage of the event is extensive, with news crews outside the museum shooting video of some of today’s biggest celebrities as they arrive and walk up the staircase into the event. But why is this happening at an art museum? It doesn’t have anything to do with art really, so it must have something to do with money. And sure enough, the event raises money for the Museum’s Costume Institute.

As spring arrives across North America, more and more of us can head into the great outdoors to prospect for gold. Here is some new equipment that can help precious gold prospectors find more gold in the summer months ahead.

Without thinking, many people throw away old items that contain precious metals that can be reclaimed for dollars – often, for a lot of dollars.

Sometimes they toss precious metals when they do home upgrades or repairs. Sometimes they do when they have their cars repaired.

We want you to make money when you invest in precious metals.

Why? One reason is that if we can help you make money by using our testing and recycling processes, we will make more money too. But that isn’t the most important reason. The most important reason we want you to do well and make money is that we want to support you. Also, the more successful you become as a precious metal investor, the better it is for our entire business sector. That’s another way of saying that when more people make more money, everyone in the universe of precious metal investing benefits.

Gold is a metal that is known for its beauty. So why is it used in so many medical devices that are used where no one can see it – inside the human body?

Gold, silver, platinum, palladium and other metals are all selling for certain trading prices that can change day by day. If you have a Troy Ounce of gold, for example, you can check on our home page and see that you should be able to sell it for $1809.20.

What precious metal investments should you be thinking about if you live in an apartment or small residence? Several considerations come into play:

Gold was trading at about $1,300 in 2018. Today, the price is more than $1,900. Those are the facts. Yet what do they mean if you are someone who likes to invest in gold? Are prices about to level off, rise even higher . . . or fall?

It seems that everything about cars is changing today, usually moving to apps. You want a ride somewhere, you fire up an app. You want to buy a car? Ditto. And if you want to scrap a car or donate it to a charity, you can manage all the details online and before you know it, a tow truck shows up and hauls your car away.

If your precious metal recycling plans include pulling components out of scrapped airliners and military planes, you are thinking in a good way. A scrapped airplane is one of the best sources of gold, silver, and other precious metal scrap. Plus, a scrapped plane is also chock-full of copper wire, aluminum, and other base metals that can be well worth recycling, even though they don’t have the allure that precious metals have.

Conspiracy theories seem to crop up about topics and celebrities that people find fascinating.

• JFK? He didn’t really die . . . and conspiracy theorists know he is coming back.

• The walk on the moon? . . . it never really happened.

• The world’s money supply? . . . it’s all controlled by a secret society that’s headquartered in Switzerland or under the Great Pyramid.

Okay, you can doubtless add more conspiracy theories to that ridiculous list. But we want to add some others of our own to it. They are all conspiracy theories, or at least crazy theories, about gold.

Your answers about high-value sports rings answered!

Back in 2014, a gang of thieves broke into the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, New Jersey and stole two American League Most Valuable Player plaques and some of the World Series rings that Yogi had been awarded during is long and storied career as a Yankee. At the time, the plaques were estimated to be worth as much as $350,000 each, and the rings were said to be worth more than $40,000 apiece.

There are times when buying precious metals is a very clean business. One example? You walk into an estate sale and buy a set of sterling tableware in a wooden storage box. Then you carry it to your car and drive it home. Your hands don’t even get dirty, and neither do your pants.

The words of a classic rock song by Bob Dylan tell us, “The times they are a-changing.”

They really apply if you invest in platinum scrap, gold scrap and silver scrap. Here are some trends that will cause major changes for precious metal investors in the next five years.

Year 2022 is shaping up to be the year when Covid-19 goes away, the year when America either rebuilds its infrastructure (or doesn’t), the year when you seriously consider buying an electric car – and lots of other big changes will happen in your life.

Another big change seems to be happening too, which is that everywhere you turn, people are talking about cryptocurrency. This seems to be the year when cryptocurrency – also known as bitcoin or bitcoins – is no longer something on the sidelines of people’s investing strategy. It has moved to center stage and people – even people who don’t know exactly what bitcoin is – are intensely interested.

“Over the last few years, my mother has spent about $500.00 to buy collectible coins she has seen advertised on television. They weren’t made by the U.S. Mint and seem to be base metal coins covered with an ultra-thin layer of gold or gold-toned metal. She is sure they are going to appreciate in value because they were advertised as rare. Should I tell her that she has made a bad investment or just wait for her to find out when she tries to sell them?”

- James, from Columbus, Ohio

Have you ever seen a stack of squashed, pancaked old cars piled in the corner of an automotive recycling yard, just waiting to be hauled away to a metal scrap yard?

It’s a sad sight. But even sadder is the fact that each of those squashed cars probably contains small quantities of gold that nobody bothered to pull out. And that problem is about to become even bigger because with every passing year, more and more electronics are getting shoehorned into modern cars. Within a few years, cars – especially electric and hybrids – are going to contain bigger and bigger quantities of gold. Remember, every printed circuit board that is found in a car contains small amounts of gold that can be extracted and recycled.

From Blackberry to iPhone and Beyond . . .

Scientists and lay people (otherwise known as “the men and women in the street”) love to predict the death of precious metals. They like to believe that gold, silver and platinum will lose value because they will be replaced by other materials and other chemicals in a lot of devices and applications.