Posted on Fri, Aug 14, 2009
Even though the economy seems like it might be on the rebound lately, the price of gold is still as high as ever. At over $950 an ounce at the time of the writing of this article, it is still a great time to sell your old scrap gold for cash. This is one of the main reasons that selling scrap gold is still on the rise. If you want to sell gold without getting ripped off there a few things you need to do first. First of all you need to understand what qualifies as scrap gold, where and who to sell it to, and how much you should get for your scrap gold. Once you finish reading this article you should have all the knowledge you need to go out and get cash for your gold.
What Is Scrap Gold?
The first thing you need to know is what exactly scrap gold is. Scrap is defined as "discarded waste material, especially metal suitable for reprocessing" which means basically any unwanted or leftover gold that can still be reused by smelting it down and reforging it. Some items that qualify as scrap gold:
* Bent or broken gold jewelry
* Bracelets or chains that are unable to be untangled
* Casting gold and grain
* Gold cluster rings
* Gold alloys
* Gold bullion
* Gold chains
* Gold coins
* Gold bars
* Gold dental crowns and bridgework
* Gold dust and sweeps
* Gold earrings
* Gold flake
* Gold ingots
* Gold nuggets
* Gold pins/brooches
* Gold screen and mesh
* Gold sheet
* Gold shot
* Gold sizing stock
* Gold solder
* Gold sponge
* Gold wedding bands or class rings
* Gold wire
* Any scrap metal that contains traces of gold
* Goldsmith's bench filings and sweeps
* Any gold jewelery with missing stones
* Gold wrist watches (like a Rolex, although you might be better selling it off to a jeweler)
* Polishing and buffing dust that contains gold particles
* Gold catalyst from petroleum processors and the like
Posted on Fri, Aug 14, 2009
Early gold-seekers, during the California Gold Rush, called "forty-niners," (as a reference to 1849) traveled to California by sailing boat and in covered wagons across the continent, often facing substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly-arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. At first, the prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. More sophisticated methods of gold recovery developed which were later adopted around the world. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required - increasing the proportion of corporate to individual miners. Gold worth billions of today's dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with little more than they started with.
With gold at near record historical prices there is a huge push for the new gold rush, particualrly among companies and individuals that have "extra" gold sitting around. Now is a fantastic time to take advantage of this new rush. To find your scrap gold value you'll need some simple math skills and a scale, preferable a jewelers scale but a standard kitchen scale will also work. Gold refiners and dealers conduct their gold transactions in pennyweights which means if you're using a kitchen scale you will have to convert from ounces or grams. One ounce equals twenty pennyweights and one and a half grams equals one pennyweight. Once you figure out the weight of your gold scrap, you need to find the current spot price of gold. You can find the current price of gold on the chart on the right side of the page. The price is in ounces so divide that by 20 and you have your value in pennyweights. But this is for pure gold. Scrap gold is almost never 24 karats so you won't get that price for it but it will give you a rough estimate to go by.