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Many people get confused about the scrap gold selling process. There are certain things you should expect when selling scrap gold so you do not run into any surprises.

This list will help you understand how the process works, and why you get paid what you do for your scrap gold and jewelry.

Gold Jewelry can be Gold-Plated or Alloyed

Some pieces of jewelry have other metals mixed in, usually to make them cheaper to produce or to create a color or quality effect.

Some gold items can be gold-plated, but are made up of a much cheaper metal like steel. Other gold items can be alloyed with something else – Rose gold, for example, comes from alloying gold with copper and silver.

If your scrap gold is metal-plated or alloyed with another metal, then you should expect to get paid less for it than if it were all gold of the same weight.

Do Not Expect the Real Price of Gold

Too many people see the price of gold (currently around $940 per troy ounce), and they expect to get that for their scrap gold. Here is why you should not expect to get paid the real price of gold.

• A troy ounce is not equal to a regular ounce – Metals are measured in troy ounces, while other things, like grocery store items, are measure in avoirdupois ounces. 16 avoirdupois ounces are in one pound.

  Troy ounces are heavier than avoirdupois ounces, so it would require more of one item for a troy ounce to be equal to an avoirdupois ounce.

  To make it easy, we can use the metric system

  • One troy ounce = 31.1 grams
  • One avoirdupois ounce = 28.35 grams
• Gold Buyers Need to Make Money – It costs money to inspect your scrap gold, refine it into gold bars, and to get it certified. Refining costs alone can be about 10% of the price. The gold buyers need to make sure they can stay in business.

  It is true the price you get paid is based on the current price of gold, but always except 20-30% or more less than the current price of gold, depending on who you sell it to.

• The Price of Gold on the Market Can Drop Fast – Gold buyers take on all of the risk when buying your scrap gold. It is very possible to see the price of gold drop by 5% or more in a single day. Although it is not common, it can happen over a few days. A gold buyer can pretty much lose all of its profit after they have paid you for your scrap gold.

  Because of this, gold buyers have to factor in some risk when paying you, so it is another reason to never expect the current market price of gold.

OK, everything so far ensures that you will get less than the market price of gold. But could you be getting too little for your scrap gold?

3 Tips You Can Use to Maximize your Scrap Gold Price

Get Paid More When You Have More Scrap Gold – Scrap gold buyers work on a graduated pay-scale, so the more you have of one type of gold, the more you will get per gram. When selling scrap gold, always sell as much as you possibly can at once.

Have More than 1,000 Grams? Deal Direct! – If you have a large amount of scrap gold jewelry, you are better going direct with a gold buyer, and negotiating your price face to face.

When selling scrap gold, most people only sell about 50 grams, rarely more than 100 grams, so going direct is not something you have to worry about.

Negotiate Your Payment – Any reputable gold buyer will give you a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. If you are not satisfied when you receive your check (and even if you are), call up the gold buyer and try to negotiate a little more money for your scrap gold. If they give in, which shouldn’t be too difficult, you can see a few extra bucks for your scrap gold.

You may have some high-quality items to sell as well, which would not be considered scrap. If you have certified gold bars, certified gold coins, or high-quality antique jewelry, you are going to get a much better deal if you find a dealer or broker for these kinds of items. For you jewelry, you would go to antique jewelry boutiques or antique dealers. For coins, your best bet is finding a coin dealer.

Step 1. Separate Your Scrap Gold into Groups

Most real gold pieces will have markings on it to tell you its karat fineness. Separate the gold into groups of: 10k, 14k, 18k and so on. If you need help understand karat fineness, see this article.

Some gold pieces may require testing to determine it’s gold content, but it may not be worth the price when you’re selling just scrap gold.

In addition, some gold items may simply be gold-plated and not actually contain gold inside. This is OK, especially if you are selling to a scrap gold buyer. You may not get a lot of money for it, but if you don’t need it you might as well sell it for what you can.

Step 2. Determine the Total Weight of Each Group

You can find a gram scale for about $10 at your local office supply store, or you could buy a digital scale for more accuracy. If you do not have more than a handful of scrap gold to sell, there is no need to spend money on a digital scale.

You want the weight of each group to be in grams, since is the common unit of measurement with metals.

Step 3. Use Our Scrap Gold Price Calculator or do it Yourself!

Now that you have the total weights of the different types of scrap gold, you can use our scrap gold calculator for getting the estimated price for your scrap gold.

To do this by hand, you can get today’s gold price and divide it by 31.1. Gold on the open market is priced by the troy ounce (For example, $950 per troy ounce, and one troy ounce is 31.1 grams)

For each group of gold, multiply the karat by 24, then multiply that number by today’s price per gram. For example, if you have 10KT gold and the current price of gold is $28.94 per gram ($900.00 / 31.1), then the price of your scrap gold is $28.94 x .4167 = $12.06 per gram.

Once you have the per gram price, you can multiply the total weight of each group by the price per gram of each group.

For example, 10 grams of 10 karat gold at $12.00 per gram = $120.00.

It is much easier to use a Scrap Gold Calculator then doing it by hand!

You need cash now and want to sell gold and silver for good money. Here’s how to do it!

Many of us have jewelry boxes that have been collecting dust for ages. Jewelry can be very expensive to fix. Some pieces of gold and silver jewelry that you find have gone out of style, while other pieces are broken and unusable. In the case of earrings, you may have lost an earring so a single earring is pretty useless to you. Watches die out and aren’t worth fixing.

The process is simple. Scour your home for all of the pieces you want to sell in your jewelry boxes, attic, or wherever. Separate the pieces into junk gold and silver you want to sell for cash quickly, and other pieces you may want to hold onto because it’s a high-quality piece or has sentimental value.

Separate by Type of Gold and Silver

Gold and silver jewelry comes in a wide variety of metals. While the pieces are made up of gold and silver, they can be alloyed with other metals to make them more or less valuable. Look closely at the pieces to identify the quality of the gold or silver.

In the case of gold jewelry, 8K, 10K and 14K is the lower quality and less pure. 14K gold is only 58.33% pure gold. On the other hand, 24K is pure, 100% gold. Click here to read more about gold purity and gold color. In the United States, 14K is the lowest purity of gold that can be considered “jewelry,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell it!

Silver has a similar system for identifying its purity. Sterling silver is less than pure silver, while .999 Silver is as close to pure silver as you’re going to get.

You can also sell platinum pieces of gold because platinum is another precious metal that is actually more valuable than gold.

Weigh Your Gold and Silver

This can be a little difficult if you don’t have a proper scale. Unless you have several pounds of gold and silver, then your typical bathroom scale won’t do the trick. You can spend $40 on a digital scale but it won’t be worth the investment. There are generic metal scales available at your local office supply store that can be used to give you a rough estimate, and they shouldn’t cost more than a few dollars.

Wait for the Right Time

Gold and silver prices change daily, but the prices a jewelry store or refiner will pay may not change as often. No one can predict the stock market, so it can be impossible to tell where the prices are going. In any case, RIGHT NOW is a good time to sell. Gold is hovering around some of the highest rates it has ever been (around $950-$975 per ounce as of mid-July 2008). You can hold onto your gold for a while to see what happens, so it really depends on how badly you need cash.

Shop Your Gold and Silver Around, then Sell for Maximum Cash

You have two options for selling your unwanted gold. One is the jewelry store, and the other is an online refiner.

For high-quality pieces, you should open up the phone book and shop your gold around to a couple of local jewelry stores. Jewelry pieces that are antiques or have quality-craftsmanship can be worth more then the actual metal they are made out of. If your piece is one-of-a-kind, then your best bet is shopping it around to jewelry stores. When a jeweler gives you an estimate, they should weigh the gold and silver out in front of you. If they do not, be weary and move on.

For lower-quality, broken, and junk gold and silver pieces, you can sell your gold to an online refiner. Online refiners work by shipping a package to your home. You fill the package with your scrap gold and silver, and then mail it off to them.

Within days you should receive a check for your bounty. If you are not satisfied with the check, send it back and they will send you back your package of gold and silver. You can get a rough estimate of what online refiners are willing to pay by using this calculator.

Cash4Gold president, Howard Mofshin, says that Cash4Gold.com is the largest buyer of gold online. The company buys from regular people all over the nation by sending out a Free Kit for those that want to make extra money by selling their old gold and silver jewelry, along with other precious metal items. Cash4Gold reviews thousands of these Free Kits a day. The packages are sorted, processed, and paid for. The process is simple. The company reviews the contents of the package and immediately sends a check to the consumer. The gold is then melted down in the company’s refinery. The customer always has the option of refusing the check and getting their package returned to them.

Mofshin states that the best way to get the highest pay-out for jewelry and other items made from precious metals is to shop it around. Some high value jewelry pieces with quality craftsmanship, or antiques, can probably earn a person more money at an antique store, road show, or jeweler. But for most pieces, like broken gold chains, single silver earrings, and whatever else you may have laying around, selling to a gold buyer is easiest way to receive the highest payout.

Consumers should not expect the $925 per ounce or so that is current price of gold. Most gold purchasers will pay 50-80% of the current gold “spot price,” depending on the amount being traded in. The rule of thumb is, the more you trade (by weight), the more you will be paid per ounce.

Cash4Gold.com is part of Albar Precious Metal Refining, Inc, one of the industry’s most respected refiners and has consistently received an A rating from the Better Business Bureau for seven years straight. It was opened in 2001, and is managed by a team of professionals with 60 years experience in the industry.

Read More about the Stacy Johnson Interview…

But are you selling your gold to a pawn shop or jeweler? If you are, you should consider requesting a gold kit today directly from a gold refiner. Why? Pawn shops are known to give you rock bottom payouts for your items, and jewelers are known to skim a little off the top for the same exact service. Your scrap gold and jewelry will end up in the hands of the refiners anyway, so why pay the middleman?

Rocket Pawn and Jewelry Owner Cynthia Beavers says customers are coming in droves to trade in their old gold for cash. “Just scrap gold chains, necklaces, rings – they’re just cleaning out their jewelry boxes,” she says. News of the price increase of gold is all over town. Pawn shops are seeing people bring in broken jewelry, old wedding rings, and even gifts from ex significant others.

Source: It’s Worth It’s Weight