Professional gold scrapping is booming, too. The largest gold buyer online, Cash4Gold.com, which is owned by a Florida refinery, Albar Precious Metals, records 25,000 transactions a month, and "it's going up every month," says Albar CEO Jeff Aronson. He attributes most of the increase to the $2 million to $3 million in advertising he spends a month, but he says the steady climb in gold prices has helped.

Online entrepreneurs have responded. Besides the many websites that buy unwanted jewelry, there's a new site, ExBoyfriendJewelry.com, which allows people to sell, trade, auction or give away jewelry from an ex — as long as they share the story of the gift on the site.

Still, gold parties can be a fun way to monetize unfashionable jewelry, says Cash4Gold.com president Howard Mosshin. "The economy is in the dumps, the housing market has hurt a lot of people, and people are looking for a way to find liquidity."

Thomas says many women don't like going to pawn shops. "At a party, they're less embarrassed about asking how much their jewelry is worth," Thomas says. "Besides, it's a form of recycling and de-cluttering."

Rhodes acquired a lot of gold jewelry in the 1980s, "but now I mostly wear silver," she says at a recent gold party here, where Thomas presided. Rhodes brought her doctor husband and a plastic food container rattling with heavy necklaces, bracelets and watches from her own collection and that of her late mother.

"We're not sure why she had six gold dolphin stickpins," Rhodes says, chuckling. But they are worth something, Thomas tells her as she tests and weighs and creates little piles of gold jewelry based on karat.

Gold is selling at $930 an ounce this day. Rhodes is thrilled to walk away with checks totaling $5,100. "Why not get rid of it if it's just going to sit in my jewelry box for 10 years?" she says triumphantly.

Besides, says her husband, Don,, 49, "you can always buy new gold things, if it ever comes back."

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