The lost treasure of the Incas? I'll give you a tenner for the lot

PRESENT TENSE:SOMETIMES, I find myself mentally taking note of the scenes that we'll next see on Reeling in the Years two decades from now. The snow will clearly feature heavily in the 2010 edition, possibly accompanied by a soundtrack of Paolo Nutini. "Do you remember how bad things were," we'll say. "And the snow wasn't good either." Boom boom.

But will we remember the smaller details, the bits in between, the grubbier corners? There are ads running now, for instance, that say as much about this year as any news headline. We’ll probably remember classic ads from our time, whatever they may be (though it won’t be Brian O’Driscoll going to the Credit Union), but the most prevalent trend at this moment in our advertising history is for people to wave evenly spaced fans of cash and shout at you to send your gold jewellery in a plastic bag.

They’ll even send you the plastic bag. Or you can come and see them in their shops. Or, they’ll come to your town and you can queue up looking like Mr T but leave several pounds lighter and a few quid better off. Either way, they’re promoting a strange gold rush, with the prospectors digging down the back of their sofas and sifting through old jewellery boxes.

The ads tend to show up at the cheaper end of the television – morning and afternoons, digital channels – and are regulars on the children’s channels. There are a great many people who worry about kids being turned into demanding little devils by the avalanche of toy ads, when in fact most commercials on Cartoonito seem to be for car insurance, high-interest no-questions-asked loans and cash for gold. It’s aimed at those sitting at home with such issues on their mind, but it means that the Churchill dog is as well-known to many five-year-olds as is Mickey Mouse. And if you need the name of a British price comparison website, ask your toddler.

Right now, every third ad on children’s television seems to feature Dale Winton waving a fan of cash and a plastic bag in a low-grade version of Antiques Roadshow, in which people greet the news that their necklace is worth 60 quid with the same enthusiasm they would usually reserve for the birth of their first child.

It is terribly grubby. Far grubbier even than Dale Winton’s tan.

The “cash for gold” business is a phenomenon of the western world, as busy in the US as it is in Ireland and the UK, accelerated by how gold prices have risen as bank accounts have dropped. During the boom, of course, some savvy experts did recommend that we buy gold. We just didn’t realise at the time that they meant we should go into Argos and ransack Elizabeth Duke.

But here’s the question that can’t be escaped: what the hell does the average person know about how much their gold is worth? Most people could have the lost treasure of the Incas in your spare bedroom and sell it for €50 because someone insists that you won’t get a better offer.

Which is why not everyone is as happy with the cash for gold trade as those ad people who’ve just sold a bracelet for a tenner. A couple of weeks ago, Fine Gael senator John Paul Phelan announced he was going to introduce a private Members’ Bill on regulation of the industry.

He claimed that criminals were finding it an easy way to sell off stolen goods. “I’ve spoken to several elderly constituents who fear that the allure of cash for jewellery will leave them even more vulnerable and more exposed to attack. One woman doesn’t know whether she is better off leaving her wedding, engagement, and eternity rings at home on the odd night she does go out, because she’s afraid that wearing them might make her a target for attack.”

There is a little hysteria in that, no doubt. Burglars were hardly chucking away old jewellery before the cash for gold phenomenon.

Understandably some jewellers here felt the need to defend their reputations. Nevertheless, you can imagine many in the wider industry dismissing Phelan’s claims with a “pff” and then going back to dispatching the plastic bags.

On the industry will go, their websites spinning across the TV sets, cash for gold outlets popping up in shopping centres, Dale Winton’s tan scaring your children. And by the time anyone comes calling, they’ll have renamed their warehouses Sierra Madre.

Ross O’Carroll-Kelly is resting