But there are some types of gold and silver items that are generally worthless. Usually this can be determined by the stamping on a price of gold or silver product. Stamping originated in the 1900’s to indicate what is in a piece of jewelry, and in most places it is the law to have to stamp gold or silver items.

Gold, Silver, and Platinum Stamps

Gold jewelry is marked with a number or a karat number to indicate that % of gold that makes up the jewelry.

You can read this handy gold conversion chart to understand what these markings mean. If your piece of jewelry has one of the markings below, it means that it does contain some amount of precious metals, which is gold, silver or platinum. The types of markings you may find include:

• .917 means 22K
• .585 means 14K
• .417 means 10K
• .375 means 9K
• .333 means 8K
• PT950 – indicates platinum content
• Plat950 – indicates platinum content
• 950 – indicates platinum content
• Platinum – indicates platinum content
• Plat – indicates platinum content
• 5% Irid-Plat – indicates platinum content
• Iridium Platinum
• 925 means Sterling Silver

Gold Stamps with Little to No Value, or Antique Value

There are a few markings or stamps on gold items that indicate that the items contain very little gold. These include:

• (GF) Gold Filled – is made by joining or bonding, under heat and pressure, a layer or layers of a karat gold to a base metal. This “sandwich” is then rolled or drawn to the required thickness. Gold Filled wire is made by forming a cup or tube of gold with a core of base metal. When drawn to size, the wire is gold around its entire diameter.
• (GP) Gold Plated – Gold plating is a method of depositing a thin layer of gold onto the surface of another metal, most often copper or silver (to make silver-gilt), by chemical or electrochemical means.
• (RGP) Rolled Gold Plated
• (RP) Rolled Plated
• Gold Counterfeits: 999, 999 Gold, or 999 Solid Gold – indicates pure gold, but plenty of counterfeiters use this markings.
• (HE) Heavy Gold Plated
• (1/10) or (1/10 GF) 10k Gold Filled – “Gold filled” applies only to items composed of a layer of gold pressed (not alloyed) onto a base metal where the weight of the gold comprises at least 1/20th of the total weight of the item. Fineness must be shown by stamp, e.g. “1/20 12 k G.F.” means the gold layer is 12 karat gold and comprises 1/20th of the total weight of the item.
• (1/20) Gold Filled
• (EP) Electroplated – “Gold electroplate” or “gold flash” or “gold washed” mean a gold coating that is 10 k or better gold at least 0.000007 inches thick. A variant, “heavy gold electroplate” (H.G.E.P.) is at least 0.0001 inches thick.

Silver Stamps with Little to No Value, or Antique Value

If your item contains one of the markings below, it does not mean it is necessarily worthless. Your item either contains too little silver to be worth melting for silver value, or is an antique piece that can get you more money by dealing with antique dealers rather than precious metal buyers. Some of these markings are from companies (Rogers Silver) that date back many, many decades – so understand what you have before tossing it out!

• Silver-Plated
• Rogers Silver
• Coin Silver
• 900
• 915
• Mexico
• 800
• International Silver

This is where BullionVault comes in. BullionVault was started in 2005 as a gold bullion exchange and physical storage provider. Their goal is to make buying, selling, and owning gold as accessible and easy as possible.

Buying Gold – Barriers to Entry

The most competitive gold prices are only enjoyed by those in the professional gold bullion market. These entities include governments, gold bullion banks, large gold dealers, and gold refineries. The professional gold market only deals in Good Delivery bars. If you can’t trade in these bars, then you can’t enjoy their completive prices.

A Good Delivery bar will typically weigh around 400 Troy Oz, which is around 12.5 kilograms. These Good Delivery bars are cast by a very small group of metal refiners, accredited by professional gold bullion dealing communities in New York, Zurich, and London. These gold bars are always 99.5% pure gold or better. The professional markets only trade the pure gold content, known as fine gold, so you never had to pay for the .5 or less percentage of impurities.

As these Good Delivery bars are moved between vaults and accounts, a very careful record is maintained. This guarantees the gold bar is what it is, and it greatly lowers the handling and dealing costs.

BullionVault gives you Access to the Professional Markets

With BullionVault, you get access to professional market gold, in any quantity that you want. That means you can deal with gold in grams instead of paying for a full bar of bullion.

BullionVault deals with Good Delivery gold, giving you the best market prices available. The cost of dealing with BullionVault is about 1/10th what a regular individual would pay dealing with gold coins and small gold bars.

There are no fees to join BullionVault, where there would be with a unit trust or mutual. You only pay commission when buying gold up to 0.8%, which lowers as invest more. You can pay as little as 0.02% when you invest more than $30,000.

The gold is stored in vaults in London (UK), New York (USA), and Zurich (Switzerland). Storing your gold through BullionVault means storage charges of an incredibly low 0.12% pa with insurance. That’s less than 1/10th of storage fees charged by retail banks.

When you sell your gold, you won’t have to hire an expensive armored courier. This can save you an incredible amount of money. BullionVault customers save money because they deal directly with each other!

BullionVault Guarantees your Safety and Security.

When you buy gold with BullionVault, it is your property. Even if BullionVault or its parent company went out of business, you would still own the gold. No need to worry about the risks of any financial institution. It remains stored at one of three locations, New York, London, or Zurich, which are run by accredited professional vault operators.

BullionVault is the only gold market that says open 24/7. That’s in the world! There are no minimum periods for investing, and you can withdrawal your cash as soon as you sell your gold.

In addition, it’s almost impossible to make a mistake when trading on BullionVault. You can’t buy more gold than you can pay for, and you can’t deal gold at a ridiculous price. The system is designed to eliminate the obvious user errors. First time buyers are invited to talk to BullionVault customer service, so they can be led through the process with ease.

Gold jumped 11.6%, or $90.40 , to $870.90 an ounce and settled to around $850 an ounce. It was the biggest-one day price jump since the record set in 1980, where it the gain was $64.

Fearing more tightening of credit markets, investors reacted swiftly and began dumping stocks and socking money into gold, silver and other safe-haven commodities. Gold is especially attractive during times of crisis because the metal is known for holding its value.

Silver prices also jumped. The December contract soared $1.158 to settle at $11.675 an ounce. December copper, however, fell 4.65 cents to settle at $3.0425 a pound.

So what’s this mean for people who want to make some easy money? Sell your old gold and jewelry online! If you have old gold and jewelry lying around, you can take advantage of the market corrections taking place, especially since gold has dropped 25% from it’s high point of $1,000 earlier in the 2008 year. It may be a while until this is over, and gold is expected to keep rising and rising.

Source: AP: Gold prices post biggest 1-day gain ever

Precious Metals protect you against the falling US Dollar.

By diversifying your portfolio with precious metals, you can add stability, and even profitability. Precious metals are a solid hedge bet against the declining US dollar, which experts say still has a lot to fall before it goes back up. Trade imbalance, the war on terrorism, and a huge deficit are all contributing to the fall of the dollar.

The fact of the matter is that gold and silver are becoming more of a bargain on a daily basis. The reason is very simple: Every day, the central bank money spigots are spewing out at least ten times as much money, as miners are able to produce gold and silver!

Precious metals are a worldwide “currency”. The value of gold, silver, and platinum are not dependent on the US dollar alone.

Precious Metals protect your wealth.

At the very least, investment in gold and other precious metals is “safe” investment. While they won’t make you rich, they definitely won’t make you poor if all of your assets are tied up in US Currency. This is especially true for those who have retirement funds waiting which lose value by the day. If you’re protected with precious metals, you will know that some of your assets won’t be wiped away when your stocks fall.

Take a look at the graph to the right to see how gold has performed against the stock market.

Do you free information on getting in on the “Gold Rush?”

Get your investment education book by clicking the image below. No Credit Card required. Huntington Financial has 20+ years experience in trading Gold futures/options.

Gold is one of the most precious metals in the world. It has been used in jewelry making for several thousand years because of its high value and high malleability (ability to mold and bend into shapes). Gold doesn’t fade, rust, or corrode, and has a high resistance to tarnishing. Its luster makes it the most important metal in jewelry making.

How is gold purity measured?

Gold purity is measured in Karats, or for European measurement, in fineness. To understand Karats, you must know that gold can be alloyed with other metals. There are numerous reasons for alloying, whether its to make the gold stronger, or getting more metal to work with while using less gold (which is more expensive than most metals). Nothing less than 10-karat gold can be legally marked or sold as gold in the United States.

Pure gold is 24K(arat). Lower karats will tell you the percentage of pure gold used in the piece of jewelry. It’s simple math really. 18 K gold, divided by the 24 K (pure gold), is 75% pure gold. (18/24 = 75%). Use the chart below.

How do other metals change the color of gold?

Alloying gold with other metals has different effects, depending on the types of metals used. Alloying can strengthen the gold for jewelry, as well as change the color of it. The amount of color change will depend on the amount of other metals used in alloying.

• Yellow Gold – comes from alloying with Copper and Silver
• White Gold – comes from alloying with Nickel, Zinc, and Copper
• Green Gold – comes from alloying with Silver, Zinc, and Copper
• Rose Gold – comes from alloying with Copper and Silver

“You’re going to see central banks start to cut rates,” said Nick Ruggiero, a trader at Eagle Futures Inc. in New York. “Gold will stay very strong.”

Gold futures for April delivery rose $5, or 0.6 percent, to $910 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price earlier touched $915.20.

Silver futures for March delivery gained 22.5 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $16.775 an ounce. The metal has climbed 12 percent this year.

Gold has rallied 26 percent since Sept. 18, when the Fed began cutting rates because a housing slump and losses in the subprime mortgage market threatened to push the economy into a recession. The fed funds rate is now at 3 percent, down from 5.25 percent in early September.

Source: Bloomberg

Gold prices continued to skyrocket Thursday, reaching another all-time high on the falling U.S. dollar, supply concerns and high world-wide demand.

Gold futures have risen more than 42% since August. In early January, they surpassed the previous all-time high of $847 an ounce – a record that dated back 28 years.

Nadler believes that gold is selling with a $200 “anxiety premium,” amid the credit crunch, but he expects to see a price correction as the effects of the rate cuts boost the economy in the latter half of 2008.

“When we reach a return to normalcy, we will see gold trading in the mid-$600 range,” said Nadler.

Source – CNN Money 1/30/2008

The purity of gold is measured using the karat system of measurement. Gold is usually mixed, or alloyed, with other metals, such as copper or nickel. This makes the gold more durable for jewelry use by hardening the gold. Gold in its purest form is 24 Karats, which is the highest purity measurement for gold. Most of the jewelry in the United States is sold in either 18KT, 14KT or 10KT purity. Gold sold in lower Karats means that the gold has been mixed with other metals, such as copper or nickel.
For example, 18KT gold jewelry is about 75% pure, meaning 75% of the piece is pure gold, and the rest is another metal allow. All companies pay based on the karat purity weight of the gold.

What is the difference between sterling silver and pure silver?

Sterling is usually alloyed (mixed) with another metal, such as nickel or zinc to harden the silver, and is typical for everyday use, such as jewelry or flatware. Most sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver, while pure silver is anywhere from 99.5% or 99.9% pure. All companies pay based on the silver purity and weight of the silver item. Many pieces of sterling silver jewelry will contain a ‘925’ marking.

What are platinum and palladium?

Platinum is an extremely rare metal Retailers claim supply estimates of this fine metal, being 30 times rarer than gold, that if all the world’s platinum reservoirs were poured into one Olympic size swimming pool, it would be scarcely deep enough to cover your ankles; whereas gold would fill more than three such pools. Platinum and palladium are part of the platinum precious metals group. They are considered to be precious metals, based on their rarity. Both are considered hard precious metals, so they are usually only alloyed 5-10%. Both metals are also naturally white in appearance. Jewelry made in platinum will be hallmarked with ‘PLAT’ or ‘PLT’ or ‘950′. Palladium jewelry is usually hallmarked ‘PLD’ or ‘PALL’.