february-09-041wordpressHow is your gold bought? Why isn’t 14kt bought as an ounce of 14kt. gold? How does that relate to the price of gold? Gold’s $1,000+ an ounce and why don’t you get that for your 1 ounce coin? These are all of the questions that are heard with frequency. Let me help to demystify the situation for you.

First, let me speak about coins. Know that most gold coins are cut with an alloy. There are a few coins such as the Panda, Credit Suisse or the thin Austrian Kroner that are pure .999, .9999 (24Kt..). But vast majority of the coins are usually alloyed with copper. The copper imparts a rosy tint to the coin. Look to the South African Krugerrand or Mexican Pesos for examples of this rosy color. When you put a single 1 ounce coin on the scale, it weighs more than 1 ounce. It does indeed have 1 ounce of gold in it but the alloys in it will push the weigh higher than the ounce mark.

Coins (or bullion) trade back of the gold price as much as $200 depending on the desirability of the coin. The desirability is paramount for the price of any gold coin. Some coins will trade higher than the price of gold. It just depends on the coin and the market of the individual buyer.

There are so many karats of gold used with regards to jewelry. Here again, I will try to demystify these.

There is not that much jewelry made from 24kt pure gold. It is too soft and bends or scratches with little effort. It is quite often hallmarked with .999, .9999 or .999.9. This is the percent of gold content. You see this mark on some gold coins or ingots. Nothing is ever marked 100% because it always has a “trace” of impurity that can not be refined out and that trace is acceptable worldwide.

Baht gold is usually seen coming from the Asian Market. You can tell Baht by the color and the heft of the items. Baht is usually 22Kt. How does that relate to pure gold though? 22Kt. is often hallmarked with 916 which translates to 91.6% pure and the remainder alloys. Other markets in the world use 22kt such as the Middle East. The term Baht is specific to the Asian market as denotes amounts of weight not just karat.

Jewelry quite often is seen with an 18kt. or 750 stamps. This means that the item is 75% pure gold (.999) and the remainder is alloy. But how does the 18kt translate to the 24kt? It’s the 75% of 24Kt.

14Kt. or 585 is 58.5% gold and the remainder alloy.

10Kt or 417 is 41.7% gold and the remainder alloy. The lower the karat, the higher the amount of alloy.

These are the most common karats of jewelry. It is important to remember that rarely is the gold that you are wearing really 18kt., 14kt or other karats. Manufacturers have a tolerance to work with in and generally don’t produce the exact karat hallmarked on the jewelry. I will pick on 18kt. for an example. A piece of jewelry may assay out to be 17.88kt instead of 18kt. Although, it could go to the plus side but it’s not common. Jewelry contains more alloys that don’t allow the gold to be exactly 18kt. or 750. Solder is the first example that comes to mind. Solder is what binds your new sizing, tipping of flat prongs, adding a new head to hold your diamond in to name a few examples.

A gold buyer knows that once all the different karats are melted down and assayed, it is usual for the karat to drop significantly. The other thing that will drop the karat is a bad buy, i.e. buying something that was thought to be a certain karat gold or it wasn’t gold at all. And, believe me, this does happen. When assaying a lot of 14kt., it is common for it to assay out to 12-13kt. The general public never knows about this.

Common jewelry that doesn’t command a separate price will be purchased from you by the pennyweight or less commonly gram. These smaller weight measurements are used because the public doesn’t generally come into sell 100’s or 1000’s of ounces of gold.

Hopefully this will clarify and demystify some of the most common questions you have while selling your gold. Gold’s above $1000 per ounce. Now is the time for you to sell your gold and get you some cash.