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To repeat what others have said, Avoid the Rip Off places.
Their benefit is the cash is quick and the process is simple, but if we were trying to be frugal we wouldn't mind the little extra work now would we?
Tip:
First check with jewelery places to see if they can resell it or if they would want to. Pawn shops only base on weight and their light tools that tells if jewels are genuine.
If you know the pieces are not nice looking or worn then move on to reading below
Be prepared for some planning before you sell anything. You will need to know this first:
How much gold do I have?
Take your jewelery and separate it by the Karat marks 10k, 14k ect.
Separate it by the jewels connected to it. Jewels pile 1 Jewels pile 2.
Now karat is based off 24K being 100% pure rated. .999 fine
So the percentage rates:
10K/24 = 41.6%
14K = 58.3%
18K = 75%
22k = 91.6%
Now why was I so exact to the 1/10 percent? Because gold is over 1000 an ozt and at that just that price at .1% = 10 dollars. We value 10 dollars here.
The total weight is the next thing to consider. The jewelery without the jewels will be simple to weigh and get a measure on. Jewels add a new thing to the mix cause their weight doesn't count as gold but you don't want to discard them cause they may be still valuable.
The only measure consistent is grams. It is stable and doesn't change. A gram of sugar, is equal to a gram of gold. More on this after.
So take solid metal (no jewels) mens band. It shows 1.8 grams. The stamp inside the ring says 14k. 1.8 x .583 = 1.04 grams of gold. Simple do do. I weigh my pieces and use a little thin masking tape to write the weight on the piece and so I don't count it again. And I write it down.
(If you have a bunch of pieces all of the same Karat and no jewels then weigh them in a batch.)
When you have jewels I cut 5% off the weight. It is heavy but doesn't keep me down. Some rings have way more then 5% weight, some hardly have that. You can use your judgement.
Now why grams?
An OZ of sugar is NOT equal to an OZ of gold. Because gold is measured in Troy. It is a separate measurement. You will be saddened if you weigh with a regular ounce measure.
A regular ounce has 28.34 grams a Troy Oz has 31.10. That is 96 dollars difference at 1000/ozt
Kitco has regular gold price updates with easy quick $$/gram price and $$/ozt
Ok so you know what your gold weighs in grams. All you need now is a scale. Science supply, mining stores, and head shops are the best places to get the right scales. Yes I said Head Shops. Same scale to measure other substances works just fine and is compact. Cheap 15 nice 30 bucks. This will be your base tool. The buyers need a profit. So with your now actual gold weight numbers figure on getting 70% of that unless you can find a better buyer. The more quantity you have saved up the better the percentage you will get. All scrap gold/jewelery will need to be processed. It will be assayed, smelted and refined. This takes money. But to do 1 decent size batch is equal to 1 smaller batch. So they collect to bulk process and give simple percentage prices for the day.
Call and find out. Ask about Percentage of Spot For scrap jewelery. *Spot is the daily price reported publicly on the market. Most places will tell you the percentage and criteria required. It is simple they have the answers ready. There are so many places that it is too much to list. But consider the price to cost of getting it there. Driving all across town might take that 5% extra unless your batch is large enough. Shipping it is a risk as well cause often they will send you packaging and it may not be so discreet about the contents like "Cash for gold" logo on the padded envelope. Or they may want you to ship it yourself, and that is a risk as well with no record unless you ship it registered with insurance for the value of the gold being shipped.
Finding gold:
Most of this was assuming you already had some gold you wanted to get money for.
But finding the gold is the adventure. Don't make it special to go out of your way to find it. If you are already in the area then keep an eye out.
Since this is a frugal saving forum I know I myself use thrift stores a lot and yard sales. Keep your eyes open for chance items. Not everything is a ring, necklace or bracelet. Look at Ties with the metal clips, or the decorative pins. Keep an eye in the silverware for silver items. Silver you can sell right with your gold and silverware is simple to weigh an get an ozt. Old watches.
(One I found was a worn mickey mouse watch limited edition. It was shambles, the glass busted, the arms didn't work but twitched. 2 dollars but I spotted on the back small mark of 18k which had 4 grams of gold in the band and backing.)
This is a warm up guide. There is a lot to getting gold from many many other places. But others require you to refine and make it more of a business rather then just as you are already finding specials.
Their benefit is the cash is quick and the process is simple, but if we were trying to be frugal we wouldn't mind the little extra work now would we?
Tip:
First check with jewelery places to see if they can resell it or if they would want to. Pawn shops only base on weight and their light tools that tells if jewels are genuine.
If you know the pieces are not nice looking or worn then move on to reading below
Be prepared for some planning before you sell anything. You will need to know this first:
How much gold do I have?
Take your jewelery and separate it by the Karat marks 10k, 14k ect.
Separate it by the jewels connected to it. Jewels pile 1 Jewels pile 2.
Now karat is based off 24K being 100% pure rated. .999 fine
So the percentage rates:
10K/24 = 41.6%
14K = 58.3%
18K = 75%
22k = 91.6%
Now why was I so exact to the 1/10 percent? Because gold is over 1000 an ozt and at that just that price at .1% = 10 dollars. We value 10 dollars here.
The total weight is the next thing to consider. The jewelery without the jewels will be simple to weigh and get a measure on. Jewels add a new thing to the mix cause their weight doesn't count as gold but you don't want to discard them cause they may be still valuable.
The only measure consistent is grams. It is stable and doesn't change. A gram of sugar, is equal to a gram of gold. More on this after.
So take solid metal (no jewels) mens band. It shows 1.8 grams. The stamp inside the ring says 14k. 1.8 x .583 = 1.04 grams of gold. Simple do do. I weigh my pieces and use a little thin masking tape to write the weight on the piece and so I don't count it again. And I write it down.
(If you have a bunch of pieces all of the same Karat and no jewels then weigh them in a batch.)
When you have jewels I cut 5% off the weight. It is heavy but doesn't keep me down. Some rings have way more then 5% weight, some hardly have that. You can use your judgement.
Now why grams?
An OZ of sugar is NOT equal to an OZ of gold. Because gold is measured in Troy. It is a separate measurement. You will be saddened if you weigh with a regular ounce measure.
A regular ounce has 28.34 grams a Troy Oz has 31.10. That is 96 dollars difference at 1000/ozt
Kitco has regular gold price updates with easy quick $$/gram price and $$/ozt
Ok so you know what your gold weighs in grams. All you need now is a scale. Science supply, mining stores, and head shops are the best places to get the right scales. Yes I said Head Shops. Same scale to measure other substances works just fine and is compact. Cheap 15 nice 30 bucks. This will be your base tool. The buyers need a profit. So with your now actual gold weight numbers figure on getting 70% of that unless you can find a better buyer. The more quantity you have saved up the better the percentage you will get. All scrap gold/jewelery will need to be processed. It will be assayed, smelted and refined. This takes money. But to do 1 decent size batch is equal to 1 smaller batch. So they collect to bulk process and give simple percentage prices for the day.
Call and find out. Ask about Percentage of Spot For scrap jewelery. *Spot is the daily price reported publicly on the market. Most places will tell you the percentage and criteria required. It is simple they have the answers ready. There are so many places that it is too much to list. But consider the price to cost of getting it there. Driving all across town might take that 5% extra unless your batch is large enough. Shipping it is a risk as well cause often they will send you packaging and it may not be so discreet about the contents like "Cash for gold" logo on the padded envelope. Or they may want you to ship it yourself, and that is a risk as well with no record unless you ship it registered with insurance for the value of the gold being shipped.
Finding gold:
Most of this was assuming you already had some gold you wanted to get money for.
But finding the gold is the adventure. Don't make it special to go out of your way to find it. If you are already in the area then keep an eye out.
Since this is a frugal saving forum I know I myself use thrift stores a lot and yard sales. Keep your eyes open for chance items. Not everything is a ring, necklace or bracelet. Look at Ties with the metal clips, or the decorative pins. Keep an eye in the silverware for silver items. Silver you can sell right with your gold and silverware is simple to weigh an get an ozt. Old watches.
(One I found was a worn mickey mouse watch limited edition. It was shambles, the glass busted, the arms didn't work but twitched. 2 dollars but I spotted on the back small mark of 18k which had 4 grams of gold in the band and backing.)
This is a warm up guide. There is a lot to getting gold from many many other places. But others require you to refine and make it more of a business rather then just as you are already finding specials.
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