Goldstur - An Automated Gold & Silver Jewelry Buying Kiosk

The Goldstur kiosk is advertised as an automated way to cash in on unwanted gold or silver jewelry quickly. A few of these kiosks were recently installed at Supervalu’s Cub Foods supermarkets in the Minneapolis/St. Paul MN area (not too far from me) - supposedly the first in the nation. I decided to find out more, starting with a visit to their web site Goldstur and clicking on the kiosk icon. 

The kiosk requires an appraisal fee of $2.00 (cash or credit card) to begin the process. The customer is then requested to enter his/her first and last name and email address. Once these have been successfully entered the user is requested to swipe his/her driver's license at which point the first item can be placed in a container for analysis. After a few minutes the analysis is complete and a price is offered for the piece. If the offer is declined the piece is returned to the user. If the user accepts the offer, s/he is given the options of a receipt for cash or a gift card.

After viewing the video on their site I decided to give the Goldstur a test. So I drove to one of the installations in the twin cities' northern suburbs. But there was a problem - it was out of order. Thinking it had not yet been activated, I asked the lady at the nearby customer service area if the kiosk had previously been working. She said it had but couldn't tell me how long it was in service or how long it had been out of service. So my test will have to wait for another time.

It will be interesting to see how well the Goldsturs are accepted by shoppers who bring along their unwanted jewelry. If a person has one or two pieces and lives in the general area, this seems like a handy alternative for cashing in on jewelry no longer worn. I am assuming the $2 appraisel fee applies to each piece although that was not demonstrated. If a person has several items, this may work against it - unless the seller is flush with cash after accepting the first one or two pieces they have presented. I don't know how it would work on silver or gold coins such as an American Silver or Gold Eagle.

Among the competitors for Goldstur kiosks would be jewelry stores, pawn shops, local coin shops that also deal in jewelry, traveling buyers of gold and silver and maybe even home "gold parties" (I haven't heard much about them lately but they will be back when gold takes off again). 

It appears the company has big plans to expand the service and even offer a mail-in service in the future. So you might discover one or more Goldsturs coming to a location near you. Here is another video on the workings of the Goldstur kiosk Goldstur Video

Thanks for reading. JA