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Posted on: 9 November 2017

Selling your gold can be as easy as walking into a pawn shop and getting an offer. But how do you know if it is a good offer? Knowing the worth of your gold coins or gold jewelry can make you more confident when buying or selling gold. When buying or selling gold, pawn shops and jewelry stores go off the current market value for gold. While a pawn broker or other buyer will likely give you below the base market price so that they can turn it around and make a profit, they still base their offer of the gold market.

Influences in the Gold Market

The gold market is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Gold is priced per ounce, and the price value constantly fluctuates. Just like other markets, there are several factors that can influence the price of gold: major world events, like wars or elections; supply and demand; speculation with investors; and currency values. At any time, you can look up the current market price of gold through several reputable internet sites.

Know Your Gold

After you know your market value, you need to know what quality of gold you have. You probably have heard of 24-karat gold. A karat is the unit to measure the purity of the gold. The measurement of 24-karat or 24K is the highest level of purity gold offers, or in other words, 24K is 100% gold. It has a bright yellow color and has less density than other golds. Hence, it is more pliable and less likely to be used in jewelry.

There is 22K gold which is 22 parts gold and 2 parts other minerals. This gold may be used in some jewelry, but not with diamonds or heavily studded jewelry. 12K gold is often used in jewelry and would be 12 parts gold and 12 parts other minerals.

There are also a variety of colored golds. By adding different minerals to the gold, it changes the composition of the alloy. For example, white gold is created by adding more nickel to the gold. There is also electro-plating gold which paints a color over the gold, but it usually wears off with time. The value of colored gold still goes off how many karats of gold are in the piece.

Calculate

Time to dust off the math skills from high school. Once you figure out the quality of gold, you can multiply that by the weight in ounces to calculate how much gold you have. For instance, for a 24 oz piece of gold, here are the following amounts of gold you would have per karat:

• 24-karat gold will be 100% gold.
• 18-karat gold will be 75% gold.
• 14-karat gold will be 58.3% gold.
• 12-karat gold will be 50% gold.
• 10-karat gold will be 41.7% gold.

Also remember, you can visit more than one pawn shop or jewelry store, such as Atlas Loan & Jewelry Co, to receive quotes on the piece you're selling. Some may even give quotes over the phone. Knowing your gold can help you get the most money for your item.