Gold buyers are a great way to make some quick cash off of jewelry or gold items that you no longer use or want anymore. Gold is, after all, one of the most valuable metals and unlike diamonds, it is genuinely quite rare, which gives it a high price per ounce. Just the scrap value of a single ring, necklace, or pair of earrings can be hundreds of dollars. Here are a few things that you should know about the world of gold buyers before you go to sell your unwanted jewelry just so you don't get any nasty surprises at the checkout!

Research Your Karats

Karats are a useful way to let buyers and sellers know just how much pure gold is in a particular piece of jewelry. Unlike other metals, gold in its pure form is virtually impossible to shape into anything for long, so it has to be mixed with other materials. Almost all gold jewelry is actually a gold alloy, and a gold buyer really is only interested in the gold itself. The higher the karat value you have, the more you will get back from your jewelry. Using a buyer is also helpful for you because you don't have to do any work to extract the pure gold from the other metals, which is another reason why gold buyers usually take a small fee off the top of the advertised gold price.

Know The Industry Lingo

The gold and precious metal industry uses a different form of ounces to measure out your jewelry. You might be familiar with regular ounces, but troy ounces are the ones used by jewelers. That is why when you measure your jewelry at home it may not be the same as what it is at the gold buyers store. The discrepancy is just over 3 grams, with troy ounces being heavier at 31.1 grams. They are not trying to cheat you, it is a very old measuring system that has been an industry standard for a long time. 

Beware The Dip

When you look at gold prices on a scale of the last ten years, you can see that the last time it was around this current price in 2010-2012, there was a sharp drop in the market in the next five years. While that does not always mean that there will be a future drop in gold prices, it is safe to say this is an exceptionally good time to sell your gold in an ever-fluctuating market since there is very little certainty about post-COVID-19 trade. 

Contact a gold buyer for more information.

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