AU Precious Metals Review

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AU Precious Metals is a gold and silver dealer based in Rochester, Michigan, with a second location in Sterling Heights.

The company buys and sells gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium, serving both individual sellers looking to cash in jewelry or scrap and investors looking to buy bullion or coins.

It also runs a mail-in program for customers outside Metro Detroit. This review looks at what the company actually offers, how its process works, and how it stacks up against the current precious metals market.

Key Takeaways

• AU Precious Metals operates two physical locations in Rochester and Sterling Heights, Michigan, plus a nationwide mail-in selling program.
• The company uses X-ray fluorescence technology to test metal purity, which is faster and less invasive than acid testing.
• Gold prices have moved sharply in 2026, trading above $4,100 per ounce as of early July, which makes timing and dealer transparency more important than usual for sellers.

What the Company Actually Does

AU Precious Metals operates as a broker, meaning it buys metal from the public and resells it, rather than mining or refining anything itself.

On the buying side, customers can purchase gold and silver bullion, coins, platinum, palladium, and rhodium as an investment or collection.

On the selling side, the company purchases jewelry, coins, bullion, scrap gold, sterling silver flatware, watches, and diamonds.

That combination (buy and sell, retail and scrap) is fairly standard for a regional precious metals shop, but the range of metals it handles, including palladium and rhodium, goes beyond what most local pawn shops or jewelry stores are equipped to evaluate.

Here's a breakdown of the core services:

Locations and How to Reach Them

The company has two brick-and-mortar locations in Metro Detroit.

Rochester, Michigan is the original location, reachable at (586) 271-7500. Sterling Heights opened more recently as the company's second storefront, reachable at (313) 706-7006.

Both locations serve walk-ins and scheduled appointments. For people outside driving distance, which covers most of the country given Michigan's population is concentrated in the southeast corner of the state, the mail-in program is the practical option.

Customers fill out a form, get a confirmation email with shipping instructions, and send items in afterward. Nothing should ship before that confirmation arrives, which is a reasonable safeguard against lost packages.

The Buying and Selling Process

The process the company describes runs in three steps for mail-in customers, and it's roughly the same in person, just faster.

1. Submit the mail-in form or walk into a location.
2. The team evaluates the metal using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) equipment rather than acid testing.
3. You get an offer based on current spot prices, and payment goes out within one business day if you accept.

XRF testing matters more than it might sound. Acid testing, the older method many pawn shops still use, involves scratching the item and applying acid to see how it reacts.

It works, but it's destructive to the piece and less precise on mixed alloys. XRF analyzers read the elemental composition of an item without damaging it, which is faster and generally more accurate for complex pieces like antique jewelry or plated items.

If you decline an offer, the company states it will return items free of charge, and for high-value shipments (over $5,000) it reimburses the original shipping cost once a sale goes through.

What the Current Market Looks Like

This is where timing actually matters, and it's worth pausing on the numbers rather than treating gold as a static commodity.

Gold has had an unusually volatile year. According to JM Bullion, spot gold was trading around $4,168 per ounce as of July 6, 2026, up from levels near $4,025 just five days earlier.

Forbes Advisor reported that gold hit an all-time high of $5,597.23 per ounce on January 29, 2026, meaning current prices sit well below that peak even after a strong run.

Over the past five years, gold has appreciated roughly 133%, according to Forbes Advisor's tracking, which outpaced the S&P 500's 71.72% return over the same stretch using SPY as a benchmark.

Silver has moved too. As of early July 2026, spot silver was trading around $62 per ounce.

A few structural factors are behind the run-up. Central banks added a net 41 metric tons of gold to reserves in May 2026 alone, based on World Gold Council data reported by Trading Economics.

Weaker U.S. jobs numbers, including a June payroll gain of just 57,000 against forecasts of 110,000, have pushed traders to scale back expectations for further Fed rate hikes, and lower rates tend to support gold because they reduce the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset.

Here's a quick snapshot of where things stood as of early July 2026:

Why does any of this matter for a dealer review? Because a buyer or seller's outcome depends heavily on what day they walk in, not just which shop they choose.

A dealer that quotes off stale spot prices, or pads its margin heavily during a volatile week, can cost a seller real money even if the service experience is pleasant.

Pricing Transparency and What to Watch For

AU Precious Metals states it offers evaluations based on current spot prices with no hidden fees, plus same-day payouts.

Those claims are common in the industry, so the more useful question is what to verify before you commit.

None of this is unique to AU Precious Metals. It's standard due diligence for any precious metals transaction, whether you're at a big-box chain or a small regional dealer.

The company's military and first responder discount on bullion purchases is a nice touch, though it only applies to buying, not selling.

Where This Fits in the Local Market

Metro Detroit has no shortage of gold buyers, from pawn shops to jewelry stores that also buy scrap to larger regional chains.

What separates a dedicated precious metals broker from a general pawn shop is usually equipment and specialization.

XRF testing, handling five different metal types including rhodium (which very few local buyers test for correctly, given how rare and volatile its price swings can be), and offering a formal mail-in program with insurance guidance are all signs of a business built specifically around this niche rather than treating it as a side offering.

That said, a regional two-location operation isn't going to match the buyback rates or inventory scale of a national online bullion dealer for straightforward bullion purchases.

Where it likely earns its keep is in the harder-to-value stuff: estate jewelry, mixed scrap, old coins, and items where in-person evaluation and a same-day cash offer beat mailing something off into the unknown.