After enduring dozens of their "scrap gold" television commercials, I decided to try out the Lippencott "Gold Kit".

If you haven't seen these, they advise you to turn your crappy old "scrap gold" into cash.

I called the 800 number and was connected to a very nice gal. She was very polite and asked for my name, address and phone number. She promised to send a "Gold Kit".

A few days later, their package arrived. It was a business reply envelope, a thick plastic bag, and a brochure about the gold recycling. I was ready to go!

Actually, I was a little disappointed, because I wanted to write an article about how incredibly terrible their offering price is. Unfortunately, they don't actually tell you how much they pay for used gold.

The look and frequency of their television commercials did nothing to establish them as a legitimate market-rate merchant of precious metals, so I was not at all surprised that they didn't name their price.

Lippencott employs the following technique:

• You send in your gold items.
• Lippencott decides what they will pay for the items.
• Lippencott sends you a check in the mail.
• If the check is acceptable, you cash it. If not, send the check back and they will return your gold.

To test their system and discover their exchange price, I should have sent in a known quantity of pure gold.

Unfortunately, real gold is very rare, and hella expensive. Even after checking the whole recycling bin and both garbage cans, I found that I had absolutely no gold scraps in the house.

I grabbed some doo-dads out of the junk drawer and some gold spray-paint out of the garage.

Soon I had a gold nickel, a gold stem from a bunch of grapes, a gold pop-top, a gold zip-tie, a gold 'S' hook, a gold nut and a gold bottle cap.

In all, a nice sack of treasure!

I followed the Gold Kit directions and stapled the bag shut. This would thwart thieves.

This seemed a little cheesy. Isn't there a high-security version of the ziplock seal?

No? Well, there should be.

I made a note of my unique Gold Kit tracking number, packed everything back into the business reply envelope and sealed it.

I hung the envelope on our mailbox.... and waited!

Nine days later, my wife called me at work.

A letter had arrived with the words "Payment Enclosed/Incluye Pago" on the front.

Wha? Payment?

Inside was a short explanation of the payment schedule, detailing how every single thing that is precious or valuable actually is actually worthless.

It was a laundry list of reasons that they couldn't give you any money for your stuff:

• Many items appear to be gold, but they are not.
• Fashion watches have no value and are reimbursed accordingly as a disposable item
• Small colored stones (also known as gems) have no technical market value.
• Small diamonds (contrary to everything you've every learned in your whole life) have very little value.

But there, after all that buildup, at the bottom of the letter, was my payment!

A real check for $1.01!

Incredible! They really do pay cash for gold, and not just real gold... any gold at all!

Next time you see the ad, give them a call and get the gold kit. Isn't there something gold you can send them?