One pair of loopy gold earrings has been with me since high school. I wore them all the time in college and years afterward. Eventually, the back stem broke off one earring. Yet, I kept them. They were a high school graduation gift from a treasured journalism teacher.

So, really, there was no way I was about to lose one earring at a pawn shop.

Drive down the road and billboards are proclaiming "We Buy Gold." Newspaper and television ads shout "Cash for Gold." Plenty of jewelry stores and pawn shops are offering to buy gold on the spot, too.

Seems like a perfect time to sell: Gold is bouncing around record levels, as is economic anxiety.

So I wondered: How much is my stuff really worth when the price of gold was soaring at record levels?

I dug out those loopy gold earrings and my school ring from St. Florian High School. I found an old ring that I think belonged to Uncle Joe; my father's thin, heart-trimmed wedding band, a locket and other earrings.

I asked my husband one day at dinner to hand over his gold wedding band.

I don't own much gold, but my friend JD had set aside some broken chains and unloved earrings that she thought about selling. I could price JD's stuff, too.

I tucked two plastic bags of gold in my purse and one Friday afternoon recently, I visited five locations — three jewelry stores in Oakland County, one coin and jewelry shop in Detroit and a spontaneous stop at a Warren pawn shop.

My advice if you try this: Don't plan to pay the mortgage by selling your husband's wedding ring.

One of my stops was Rottermond Jewelers in Milford, Mich., which has had "We Buy Gold" billboards on I-96 for months.

At Rottermond, I was quoted a price of $204.58 for my goods.

I could get $226.71 if I threw in a watch with a 14K gold backing.

I then asked the jeweler to specifically price out some individual pieces.

He'd give me $8.85 for those loopy gold earrings, $32.45 for small gold earrings with tiny emeralds that my husband had bought me one anniversary and $73.75 for my husband's 14-karat wedding band.

Talk about reverse sticker shock.

My husband paid at least six times more for those earrings than I'd get now.

I paid more than twice that for his classic gold wedding band in 1995.

I later phoned jewelers and asked why.

"What you're actually getting is the scrap value — the meltdown value. It's not the retail value," said Christopher Terterian, vice president for Artisan Jewelers in Novi, Mich.

Gold was trading at about $925 an ounce on the day I did my pricing.

Yet, consumers got quoted about $14.75 per pennyweight for 14-karat gold at some stores on the day of my travels — or $295 for an ounce of 14K gold.

Other fees — including the cost of refining the gold — bring down what a consumer actually gets for a wedding band.

So that's why a heavy gold wedding band could bring you $75 or less, even when gold is near historic highs.

Susan Tompor writes about personal finance for the Detroit Free Press.