You’ve seen the TV adverts and the flashy neon signs that say We Buy Your Gold and maybe you’ve wondered what kind of gold to these gold buyers pay good money for. Most Brisbane gold brokers are looking to buy yellow gold, white or rose gold jewellery. Gold buyers typically buy used jewellery, old jewellery and broken jewellery. It can be 9 karat gold or more as long as your jewellery has some pure gold, you will find a gold buyer who is willing to offer you something for it.
To determine the karats or quality of gold, look for numbers stamped on some part of your jewellery piece. If you have a jewellery piece stamped with 10k then it has 41.7% pure gold, 14k contains 58.3% pure gold and 18k gold contains 75% pure gold. The most popular grade of gold in jewellery is 14k and it is the one that most buyers find most practical to buy. This does not mean you can’t sell anything with a grade lower than that but you will get more interest for jewellery that is graded 14k and higher.
What type of gold aren’t Gold buyers interested in?
Brisbane gold brokers aren’t usually interested in costume jewellery, gold plated jewellery or rolled gold. Jewellery marked with :KT GF, KT GP and RGP will not be appealing to gold buyers.
If you are not sure of the purity of your gold jewellery you can test it by doing the following:
- Conduct a magnet test
Move a magnet over the gold jewellery. Pure gold is not magnetic and it should not be attracted to the magnet.
- Take it to a jeweller for an independent appraisal
Gold buyers use a magnifying g eye-piece called a loupe to find markings that are hard to read.
- Acid Test
Gold buyers may also conduct an acid test. This involves putting a drop of acid like nitric acid on the piece of jewellery. The acid should react with the gold to show the purity of your gold.
The buyer will weigh your gold and offer you a price based on the spot of price. The amount of cash you can expect to get will be different from the retail price of the jewellery. Here’s why. A gold buyer buying gold from a wholesale supplier may pay a lower price than what he would he would sell it for. That’s because he has to add a margin to the sale price to cover his overhead expenses and to make some profit. When you sell your jewellery, it counts as a second hand product even if you’ve never won it.
Gold dealers have what is known as the buy-and-sell spread. This is the difference between what a dealer will pay for a gold item and what he will sell it for. The spread can vary from 0.5 percent to 35 percent depending on the gold, the volume and the dealer. Knowing the spread can help you get the most cash for your gold.