"There's money in them thar hills!" Or should we say hidden corners and boxes in your bureau drawer. Junk jewelry has become big business. Gold brokers have popped up on nearly every corner as the market price of gold has shot to record levels.
However, all this hype over turning your gold into cash has created some stress for consumers. Are you really getting a good deal or is the gold broker getting the bulk share of the profit leaving you with gold dust instead?
We went undercover to demonstrate just how widely gold prices can vary and how you could be missing out on hundreds of dollars. We went inside the gold broker industry for a rare look in how it all works.
The first thing you need to know before you sell your gold is what you have in hand. Old jewelry has no real value to anyone right now. It's the pure gold that gold brokers are after. However, all that glitters is not gold.
Armando Fundora of Gold Rush Refiners in Atlanta took us inside his plant to show us the process of turning gold jewelry into a marketable product. That means melting it down to get at the pure gold which is extracted and turned into gold bullion. Gold bullion is the traded on the open market and it's that price per ounce that you need to know. That's why it's so important to know how much pure gold you have before you sell it. Our goal is to help you accomplish that.
To put brokers to the test we gathered up 25 pieces of scrap gold, including jewelry, chains, lockets and pendants. Then we enlisted the help of gold mining experts to test it. Bradley Varhol President of Eon Products Inc. and David Hurst, member of the International Precious Metals Institute and President of Bactrac Technologies tested our gold with a high tech piece of equipment using X-Ray Fluorescence (Innov-XSystems). This machine gave us an analysis of the percentage of pure gold content in our jewelry. The rest was simple. Using pure gold percentage, weight and market price our experts calculated the value of the gold that we wanted to shop around. When we put brokers to the test gold was trading around $1150/ounce. Our gold was worth about $1340. Now we could go out to shop around with confidence.
To see the analysis of our gold click here.
Don't be discouraged. You can do it too!
We've created a gold calculator tool for you. If you can read the karat stamp on your gold all you have to do is weigh it and put in the karat value. Our calculator will automatically calculate the price based on the current bullion price. Now remember that all karat stamps are not as accurate as they should be and some brokers may find your gold doesn't measure up, which is why we used high tech analysis. However, this tool will give you a fairly good idea of what you've got.
RESULTS
We compared prices at nine different gold buyers, including, 3 gold specialty shops, 3 pawnshops and 3 jewelers. The best result we got in our test was about 60% of the market value based on the amount of pure gold content in our jewelry. In our case our gold was estimated to be worth $1340 dollars and our best offer was $780. The lowest price we were offered was $450.
Click here to see all our test results.
Our gold experts tell us 60 percent of bullion market value price is a good deal. However, we also discovered many brokers will match or beat their competitor's price, so you should barter for more. Also, if you have a large amount of gold to sell you might want to take it directly to a refinery. Gold Rush Refiners will melt it down into a product that can be readily sold and analyzed by X-Ray Fluorescence to determine exact gold content and weight and will allow you watch the entire process. Then offer you a price. We don't recommend you mail your gold away to be exchanged for cash because you have no control over it once it leaves your hands and there's no guarantee it will be received.
TEST YOUR GOLD FOR FREE
11ALIVE Teams Up with Mining Experts. Bring your gold and you can get it tested.
When: Thursday December 17th, 2009.
Where: 1185 North Cobb Parkway NW, Marietta, GA 9am-7pm.
We will be live at this location all day.
The Center for Investigative Action has enlisted the help of Eon Products and Bactrac Technologies to test the gold content in your jewelry. That combined with our online calculator will give you the market value as you shop.
After we completed our investigation we looked around for a suitable location to test your gold that could offer convenient access and security and we found that BestGoldRates in Marietta has both. The company was second highest in our test.
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GOLD?
Click here for a coupon for a discount on admission to Fernbank Museum's Gold Exhibit.
