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As the price of gold gets higher and higher, many people are considering selling gold jewelry for cash. You need to be careful when selling your gold jewelry. Know what you have and know what it is worth before trying to selling if at all possible.
Determining What Type of Gold You Have
First you need to know how much gold is in your jewelry. If you are selling the jewelry for metal value only (which is how most dealers base their pricing), look at the gold marking to determine carat weight. Assuming you bought from an honest dealer, the gold marking will be accurate.
Hopefully your jewelry is marked with something like 10K, 14K or 18K. If the gold marking is followed by GF, the jewelry is gold filled.
If you have gold filled jewelry, generally, it is not worth selling for gold value.
How Much Is Your Gold Worth?
Gold karats are expressed in units of 24ths. Thus, pure gold is 24-karat or 100 percent gold, 18-karat is 75 percent gold, 14-karat is 58.5 percent gold, and so on.
The price of gold is based on a troy ounce which is approximately 31.1 grams. Many kitchen scales will give weight in grams as well as regular ounces.
A formula would then be something like this:
(Grams of gold x % gold) / 31.1 = Troy ounces of Gold
So a 60 gram necklace of 14 Kt gold would be 1.128 troy ounces of gold. (60 x .585)/31.1
You would then look up on the chart how much 1.128 troy ounces of gold is worth.
Alternatively: if you have 1 troy ounce (31.1 grams) of 14K gold and gold is selling for $1000 per troy ounce, the value of the actual gold would be $580. Of course the buyer will want some profit. However, knowing the base value is useful. If you end up needing to sell for the gold content value, we recommend selling at a place that specializes in buying metals. One such place is Kitco. Here are their current gold buying prices.
Helpful Gold Selling Tips
- Cash value for gold jewelry is much less than the appraised value unless your appraisal was during a time of much lower gold values. Assume the price offered for your gold jewelry will be much less than you paid for it.
- The value of gold fluctuates. Always check the current price before selling. Note the current gold price when given an offer if you don’t plan on selling your gold jewelry the same day.
- Know what you are selling first if at all possible.
- Comparison shop if you don’t know your dealer. Go to two or more dealers to get quotes. They should be willing to tell you how much they will pay for your piece for free.
- If you decide to try selling your jewelry elsewhere (ie: EBay, newspaper, etc), know what estate dealers will pay first so you have a minimum selling price for your jewelry.
- If your item is an antique, has precious stones or is designer (such as Tiffany’s), it often worth more than simple gold value.
Technorati Tags: selling gold jewelry for cash, selling your gold jewelry
8 Comments
Nice post. So what exactly is “gold filled jewelry?” Plating over pot metal?
Any tips on what, if anything, we can do to get more money for any particular piece of gold (or other precious metal) jewelry that we might sell?
Though gold filled has real gold, it is just a layer of gold bonded to another metal. It has twice the amount of gold that gold plating has, but usually not enough to sell well on its value.
By regulation, it has (at least) 1/20th of its weight is gold. So if your piece is exceptionally heavy, it may be worthwhile.
Other tips for selling jewelry may be found on: Selling Jewelry
This is awesome. Thank you. This is the first site that has explained this to me. I keep seeing places that will purchase an ounce of 14 carat jewelry for $20 or so. This seems very at odds with the almost $100 that 24 carat gold is currently priced at. I wonder if I am simply looking at the wrong places to sell. Thank you!
Woops, I meant almost $1000 per ounce that gold is selling. Thank you!
Remember that the pricing is per TROY ounce - 31.1 grams.
Going to a place that buys gold jewelry for the gold value rather than the jewelry itself, usually will help you get a better price.
At this moment the price per troy ounce is approximately $900.
You may also be interested in: Selling Silver Jewelry and Selling Your Platinum Jewelry.
Heyy everyone, I’m selling a pair of 21k gold bangles. They are in great condition and they weigh 33.6grams. I’m selling them for $900nego. If you are interested you can contact me at 347 933 7522. Im located in the New york area. Thank you.
I shopped around some gold and the pawnshops were the worst in terms of prices. I found a place in Hollywood that gave the highest amount. If you live in LA, check them out. This is their website:
http://www.goldexchange-usa.com
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