Headline: ANALYSIS-As gold prices surge, cash-for-gold frenzy fades
Handing out flyers at the corner of 47th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City's Diamond District, Mariabi Peenya is having trouble finding passersby eager to sell their gold jewelry for cash.
In Mexico City, Paulino Luna says fewer customers are coming to his small storefront in a colonial-era building, where he's been buying bullion for 25 years. And in Chennai, India, Daman Prakash Rathod finds the once-heaving crowd of local gold scrap sellers have all but disappeared.
Across the globe, the latest surge in gold prices -- up as much as 20 percent since June as investors seek refuge from stock market turmoil and sovereign debt crises -- is failing to lure as many people into selling their gilt mementos, heirlooms and dusty family jewels as during the 2008 financial crisis.
The success of massive cash-for-gold industry over the past three years, urging people to sell their gold, means there are fewer and fewer people with any "old gold" left.
Source: reuters.com
