The corkscrew earrings I got for my 16th birthday felt way too ’80s to wear, but I still liked to look at them sometimes. As for the dome-shaped ring with the ripple running over it, my mother couldn’t figure out how to wear it, so she gave it to me to try. Could I really trade these things for a pile of twenties?

What about the bracelet that friends of my parents gave me for my bat mitzvah, thrillingly ensconced in a red Cartier box? Or the earrings my grandfather made at his shop on the Lower East Side?

O.K., this array of gold jewelry was not really mine, but the story behind each piece was real for somebody. Over the last year, as the price for gold has risen  it is now above $1,000 an ounce, an all-time high  countless people have gone rummaging around their dresser drawers for those old trinkets from Aunt Bertha. They’ve asked themselves some hard questions: What is the exchange rate for sentimental value? At what price does it make sense to open the jewelry box and let the treasures go?

Alas, I have no gold  and, on closer inspection, no Aunt Bertha. Some colleagues, however, had some old baubles, so I stuffed them in a Tiffany & Company felt bag and headed off to the diamond district to sell memories by the ounce.