How To Sell Scrap Gold

| by Zachary Callahan

Even though the economy seems like it might be on the rebound lately, the price of gold is still as high as ever. At over $1500 an ounce at the time of the writing of this article, it is still a great time to sell your old gold scrap for cash. If you want to sell gold without getting ripped off there a few things you need to do first. First of all you need to understand what qualifies as scrap gold, where and who to sell it to, and how much you should get for your gold.

What Is Scrap Gold?

Before you do anything, you need to know exactly what is scrap gold. Scrap is defined as “discarded waste material, especially metal suitable for reprocessing.” Which means basically any unwanted or leftover gold that can still be reused by smelting it down and reforging it. Some items that qualify as scrap gold:

Bent or broken gold jewelry
Bracelets or chains that are unable to be untangled
Casting gold and grain
Gold cluster rings
Metal alloys containing gold
Gold dental crowns and bridgework
Gold dust and sweeps
Damaged gold earrings
Gold flake
Gold pins/brooches
Gold screen and mesh
Gold sheet
Gold plating
Gold shot
Gold sizing stock
Gold solder
Gold sponge
Gold wire
Some electronic circuit boards
Gold plated CPUs and chips
Cell phone SIM cards
Damaged Gold coins
Goldsmith’s bench filings and sweeps
Any gold jewelery with missing stones
Polishing and buffing dust that contains gold particles
Gold catalyst from petroleum processors and the like

Figuring Out How Much Your Scrap Gold Is Worth

To figure out your scrap gold’s value you’ll need some basic math skills and a scale, preferable a jeweler’s scale but a standard kitchen scale will also work. Most gold refiners and dealers conduct their gold transactions in pennyweights which means if you’re using a kitchen scale you will have to convert from ounces or grams. One ounce equals twenty pennyweights and one and a half grams equals one pennyweight. Once you figure out the weight of your gold scrap, you need to check the current spot price of gold which you can find using the chart on the right sidebar. The price is in ounces so divide that by 20 and you have your value in pennyweights or by 31.1 for grams. Also the price is for pure gold. Scrap gold is never 24 karats so you won’t get that price for it but it will give you a rough estimate to go by. Or if you want to be more accurate and you have a gold testing kit or you already know the karats of your scrap, use the chart here or use our gold value calculator.

Selling Scrap Gold For Cash

Selling Scrap Gold So now that you’ve gathered up your scrap gold and have figured out how much it is worth, you’re ready to pick out who you are going to sell to. For scrap gold there are really only two places you can sell to: gold refiners and gold dealers. Gold dealers are the middlemen that will buy your gold and sell it to the refiners. Often times they are not the best choice as many refiners will let you sell to them directly. If you do this you don’t have to pay the middleman fee and can get a better price for your gold.

Scrap gold refiners are those companies that you see in the commercials offering to buy your unwanted gold jewelry and scrap for cash. You can find refineries all over the place if you know what to look for. One of the easiest places to find gold refiners is online. We offer many reviews of cash for gold companies right here on the site. You can also try your local yellow pages to see if there are any local gold refiners in your area. If you’re not happy with an offer you get from one of these online gold refiners you can always request that they send it all back and you can try another refiner.

The important thing to remember is to only deal with reputable and established companies. This becomes even more obvious with those companies that you must deal with by mail. Many reputable companies like Empire Gold Buyers will have a gold calculator on their websites so you will know in advance the amount that you are likely to receive and, more importantly, the best gold buying companies will offer a price guarantee. Following this advice can help you avoid falling for predatory companies and websites.

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