What is my gold worth?

What is the current price of gold? What is the 'Spot Price' and what does that mean to me? How much is my gold really worth?

These are all good questions, and the answers aren't hard to come by, as long as you don't mind doing a little math.

Determining the value of a piece of gold jewelry is always a tricky business, especially since there tends to be an emotional or sentimental attachment to many pieces. The following information does not deal with such factors, it simply addresses the value of the gold itself in an item. For example, a broken necklace or set of earrings don't have any practical value, but the gold itself in the items can be reclaimed, and does have significant value.

The current price for gold, the Spot Price, is the current price for a Troy Ounce of 24 Karat (99.99% pure) refined gold, ready for immediate delivery. The price can fluctuate minute by minute, much like the stock market does, and can vary wildly over the course of a day. You can easily check the current Spot Price via the Internet. One good site for this is http://www.kitco.com/. At the top left of their page is a box labelled "Live Spot Gold" and you can look at the Bid price or Ask price - they are usually pretty close.

A Troy Ounce is about 10% heavier than a standard ounce used to weigh food, so the best way to determine how much gold you actually have is to use the good old metric system. There are 31.1 grams in a Troy Ounce, as opposed to about 28.3 grams to a standard ounce. If you take the current Spot price and divide by 31.1, you'll have the current price for a gram of pure, 24 Karat, refined gold.

Example: $800 (spot price) ÷ 31.1 = $25.72 per gram for 24 Karat gold

The next step is to determine how much actual gold you have. Gold is rated by the Karat system, which is simply a number that tells you how pure the gold is. Many items will have a stamp that will give you a starting point; 10KT, 14KT, 18KT, and so on. If you divide the Karat rating by 24 (pure gold), you'll get the percentage of gold in your item. So, for example, 18 Karat gold is 75% gold (18 ÷ 24 = .75), whereas 10 Karat gold is only about 42% gold (10 ÷ 24 = .417). It is important to note that just because an item is stamped with a certain rating, that doesn't mean that it is always true. Some older pieces and some pieces from other countries may be under-karated, or have less gold that what is stamped on the piece. Some items may not be stamped at all. Testing an item electronically is always recommended to get a truer reading of the actual gold content.

So let's say you have about half an ounce of 10 Karat gold. When it is weighed, it comes out to 15 grams. If the current spot price is $800 per ounce, the value of the gold in your items, after it is extracted in the refining process, would be as follows:

Example: $800 (spot price) ÷ 31.1 = $25.72 X .417 (10 Karats ÷ 24 Karats) = $10.73 per gram X 15 grams = $160.90

However, that price is for the gold AFTER it has been refined, all the other metals and impurities have been removed and it is made into a 99.99% pure gold ingot. Obviously, those are all necessary - and costly - steps to get the gold ready to reuse. Depending on where you sell the gold - and to who - you will only receive a portion of its value. Some Internet gold buyers or pawn shops will only offer you 25% of the gold's value (or maybe less).

Remember, that doesn't mean that the person buying your gold is putting all of the rest of the money beyond what they offer you into their pocket. There are refining fees, delivery charges, rent, overhead, payroll and all of the other costs of doing business. And it is only right to expect that they make a little profit - just not ALL at your expense. A fairer offer might be something more along the lines of 50% or a little better.

So, in the above example, we might expect to be offered anywhere from $40 (25%) to $80 (50%) for our half ounce of 10 Karat gold. Let's say that the Spot Price of gold falls or rises by $25. The difference, one way or the other, would be about $1.25 (25%) or $2.50 (50%) up or down. So really then, the biggest difference is not caused by the daily fluctuations in the Spot Price so much as by WHO you sell your gold to.

To sell your gold locally in Kansas City, give South Kansas City Gold Buyer a call at 816-718-5251 or e-mail us at bob@SoKCGoldBuyer.com. You can check us out on the Web at http://sokcgoldbuyer.com/. We will meet with you, examine your gold - in your presence - and make you a fair offer - at least 50%; often more - and pay CASH on the spot.

Please feel free to contact us with any thoughts or questions.