Rather than make a special trip to a coin dealer or pawn shop to sell their unwanted gold, a growing number of women are taking it to their girlfriends' homes where they can socialize with friends and leave with cash.

"Most of them have never heard of this before," said Tom Kelly, owner of Gold Home Party, a business based in Dormont. "It's a new experience for them to sell gold, and they are genuinely shocked at the amount of cash that we're able to offer them."

Donna Zang recently hosted a gold party for about two dozen friends in the newly renovated wing of her Pleasant Hills home. She supplied the music and finger food. In return, she received 10 percent of the $3,800 worth of gold, silver and platinum the dealer purchased from her friends that night.

Suburban women in the Pittsburgh area alone had sold more than 50 pounds of gold jewelry per week at the Dormont business' home gold parties over the past six weeks, said Mr. Kelly. Business has grown to the point where his company recently had 131 gold parties throughout Allegheny County in one weekend.

Similar parties are being held in communities around the country, as the idea catches on with people who may be tired of attending events where someone is trying to sell them cosmetics, clothes or other goods.

It's easy to see how the gold parties have mushroomed. People who attend see the host collect around $500 just for organizing it, often prompting several people at the event to decide to host their own.

Women of all ages arrive with bulging plastic bags and whole shoeboxes full of golden knicknacks that are bent, broken or out-of-style that they've accumulated through a lifetime of Christmases, Valentines Days, birthdays, ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, family members and friends. They sometimes even bring their husband's old jewelry to sell.

"This is stuff I'm not using, so I brought them out to get rid of them," said Susan Staszewski, 60, a bus attendant for special-needs children in the Baldwin-Whitehall school district. She attended the party in Pleasant Hills. "It's better than having it just sit in the drawer."

Many don't know what their items are worth, and they scream with delight and cry tears of joy as they receive hundreds of dollars in cash on the spot for things they had no plans to wear again. Sometimes they find out the jewelry their husband or boyfriend gave them was not authentic, causing a few moments of embarrassment.

"A lot of people inherit jewelry or things wind up in their possession and they're not sure of what they have," Mr. Kelly said. "They can bring it to one of our parties and we'll tell them what's gold and what's not."

Although the spot price of gold has pulled back from its record high of more than $1,000 an ounce in March, its value has held up better than many other assets and is still relatively expensive at just under $800 an ounce.

Gold dealers buy old jewelry at a discount from the public and resell it for a profit to refiners who melt it down, extract the pure gold and recycle it into new jewelry, coins, bars and other products.

Mr. Kelly, who has been in the jewelry business for 18 years, came up with the idea for the home party business in November 2007 and said it was the best business model he has ever had.

With all that gold and cash trading hands in residential settings throughout suburban Allegheny County, Mr. Kelly recognizes the potential dangers. He said all of his buyers have been trained in safety measures and there have been no incidents.

Allegheny County Sheriff William P. Mullen is aware of the gold home party business and he, too, has considered the possibility that they could be a target for criminals.

"Obviously robbery is a possibility," the sheriff said. "But the crooks here aren't that creative. They'll go for banks and 7-Eleven stores where there are cameras and they'll face severe penalties.

"I know people who have attended those parties and when I heard of it, I thought of the possibility of a hold-up or a good way to get rid of stolen property and not be able to trace it back. Those are the weaknesses I see."

Mr. Kelly said state law requires his company to collect names, addresses and driver's license numbers from all sellers. They also must sign a form verifying their identity and ownership of the jewelry. The company holds all jewelry purchased for five days.

Gold dealer Eddie Lowy, owner of Banner Coin Exchange, Downtown, believes the gold home parties are a legitimate business but said his clients who have attended such events get between 10 and 30 percent less for their gold than storefront gold dealers pay.

"The gold home parties are the Tupperware parties of the 2000s," Mr. Lowy said. "They are a lot of fun. But they don't pay as much as I do."

He would argue that the group situation has drawbacks. "It's a way for women who don't have enough income to get a bunch of their friends together with a bunch of their gold to sell. Once one person decides to sell, then everybody feels pressured to sell whether they are getting a good deal or not."

The Downtown businessman is just as opinionated about offers from gold dealers who rent hotel space on the weekends to buy precious metals from the public. They have more overhead expenses, he said, so they are more likely to offer the lowest prices in order to turn a profit.

Megan Hartung, 34, of Spring Hill, had attended a gold home party prior to attending Mrs. Zang's and is planning to host her own this month.

"I went to my sister-in-law's party in Bethel Park about a month ago," she said. "I had never heard of it before. I took a few pieces of broken jewelry like chains and things. I got $200 for things that had just been sitting in my drawer."

Mrs. Hartung earned another $160 at Mrs. Zang's party selling some silver dimes and quarters, and a gold jewelry piece that was missing a stone.

"If they would have offered me $40, I would have been happy with it," she said. "I wasn't really expecting anything from the junk I brought. I never really thought much about the jewelry I knew I was never going to wear again.

"I just held onto it and I started to question, why am I keeping it? What's the point?"