How Much Is One Ring Worth After Gold Prices Soared In 2025?
How Much Is One Ring Worth After Gold Prices Soared In 2025?
Long Article but very interesting
Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press December 17, 2025
I asked my husband to take off his gold wedding band — again. I wanted to see one more time what I'd get if we wanted to sell it. Sure, we've been married 30 years. But after 30 years of marriage, well, he's learned to roll with oddball requests — and even ribbing when the ring initially didn't want to come off.
"We buy gold" signs grab your eye after gold prices broke one record after another in 2025. The record price for spot gold was trading at an intraday high of $4,380.99 an ounce Oct. 17, according to Kitco.com.
On Thursday morning, Dec. 11, the day I trekked out in the cold to get a few price quotes, the spot gold price was trading around $4,250 an ounce — up nearly 63% so far in 2025.
On Dec. 11, gold shot up to the highest point in more than a month, following the Federal Reserve's decision Dec. 10 to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point. Traders expect lower interest rates ahead, which can be bullish for gold prices.
Yet if you're thinking about taking advantage of high gold prices to get rid of some gold, maybe a broken chain for a locket or even a gold ring from a loved one, you shouldn't expect to receive the same amount of money everywhere you go.
What different jewelers and pawn shops offer to pay a seller for old gold jewelry can vary substantially — even as much as 50% in one example I found recently. Sometimes, the price difference is even higher.
Higher prices for gold hits holiday shoppers
Gold is volatile in price but viewed as a hedge against uncertain times — and we've had our share in 2025. Persistent inflation; three rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in 2025 after three rate cuts in 2024, which make some savings vehicles less attractive; a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar; global tensions relating to tariffs and wars.
Gold is commanding a higher price for many shoppers this holiday season, too, according to the annual PNC Christmas Price Index that reviews the cost of the gifts from the classic holiday carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas."
"Five gold rings saw the single-biggest price jump by far" in that grouping of 12 categories, including a partridge in a pear tree. The price of the partridge remained unchanged at $20.18 for one bird, but the pear tree shot up in price by 14.3% to $400 in the past year, according to the index now in its 42nd year.
By contrast, the "five golden rings" in the song soared in price by 32.5% year-over-year. It's sort of a bargain when you consider the 45% jump in gold prices, as of Oct. 31. Jewelers, obviously, didn't raise prices as much to try to hold onto some sales.
The five gold rings would cost $1,649.90 in 2025 based on the PNC analysis.
The cost of the 12 gift basket rose 4.5% compared with last year, outpacing the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index year-over-year reading of 3% for September, which was released Oct. 24.
Data is compiled using sources from across the country, including dance and theater companies, hatcheries, pet stores and others. Overall, the total cost to buy the 12 gifts that comprise the PNC CPI for the holidays hit $51,476.12 in 2025.
Buying all the gifts rattled off in the popular, but incredibly annoying Christmas song would have cost you $46,729.86 just two years ago in 2023. And, oddly enough, in 2023, the price for five gold rings was $1,245 and had stayed flat for the first time in more than five years.
What I discovered trying to cash in gold
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