Category Archives: Gold

Is there an easy way to determine if my gold necklace is real gold or gold plated? – Magen in Chesterfield, MO

There are many plating materials out there that make an item look like gold or silver. If you are questioning what type of metal you have there are a few things that may help determine if your item is solid and “real” without damaging the item.

• Check for a hallmark. However, you must be careful because sometimes sellers can be deceiving in making buyers think they are getting solid gold or silver with a hallmark when in fact, it is a counterfeit.
• Run a magnet over the items. Neither gold nor silver attract to magnets. If the magnet sticks to the item, without question it is NOT “real” gold or silver and probably contains very little of the precious metal.
• Gold in its purist form is actually soft and will bend when squeezed in your hand. Alloying it with other stronger, less expensive metals makes it harder.

If you try these methods and still do not have answers it may be time to take your items to a professional. There are acid tests that can be administered, however they involve making small cuts or incisions into items and working with acids can be a dangerous and difficult process. Refineries have the necessary instruments to measure the amount of precious metal in an item.

I have a 51 piece 24K gold plated flatware set that is supposed to contain 63 pieces (I’m missing 12 salad forks.) If it were a full set, it’s only going for about $50 on E-Bay. It is not marked 24K, but the certificate included with the set states they guarantee it to be so. So let’s just assume this to be true. Would I be better off to sell this online for $40 or $50 or sell it as gold scrap? Thanks. – Mark in Las Vegas, Nevada

Gold Plated Flatware

Hi Mark:

Unfortunately, plated gold flatware typically only contains a microscopic layer of gold. In most cases, the flatware is plated so thinly that it costs more in energy and time to remove the gold than the gold is worth. Therefore, most precious metal refiners cannot offer payment for gold plated items.

However, the value of your flatware depends greatly on the metal underneath the gold plating. In some cases, manufacturers plated the gold over sterling silver. If your set is gold on sterling silver, the set should be worth more than $50.00 for the silver value (market price of silver and weight depending). If they are gold plate on stainless or copper or another base metal you are best to sell them on ebay.

To give you a feel for the melt value, we buy sterling silver by weight and pay around $175 a pound at this time.* If you want to determine what metal is under the gold plating, you can send us one piece to test in our XRF analytical lab to determine if it is silver underneath the gold or you might be able to dig up some information by calling/writing the manufacturer.

You can see how the XRF machine works Arch Enterprises Video Site.

* Price reflects the price of silver when this blog article was published and my not reflect the current price of silver, which changes daily.

Are there differences in melt values between White Gold and Yellow Gold? — Sue in Cleavland, Ohio

For the most part, gold jewelry of the same karat value will have about the same melt value whether it is white gold or yellow gold. Aside from 24 karat (pure gold), all other karats of gold are alloys that include some other metals in them.  For example, an 18 karat gold item is about 75% gold alloyed with other metals that in turn affect the item’s color and hardness. Palladium and nickel are often used to create white gold while copper and silver are used for yellow gold.

Of course, nickel has dermatological health issues with it and palladium is expensive, so some white gold alloys actually include magnesium or chromium. Today, you are more likely to find rhodium plated gold as this metal often provides the look that consumers want, but the cost is so high that it is typically just plated onto the gold.  As a general rule, there is usually not a significant difference in melt value between an 18 karat yellow gold ring and an 18 karat white gold ring of the same weight.

24 karat gold is 99.84% gold (not achievable in white gold)
22 karat gold is 91.52% gold  (not achievable in typical white gold)
20 karat gold is 83.33% gold
18 karat gold is 74.88% gold
14 karat gold is 58.24% gold
10 karat gold is 41.60% gold
9 karat gold is 37.44% gold

I am a dentist and have some old gold crowns that I have recently taken out of patients mouths. At what point does it become profitable to send them in for refining.  Do I need to have 20-30 crowns before it makes sense? — Dr. Norton

It can be hard to judge how much precious metal is in dental gold scrap because so many different alloys are used in the industry. Typically dental gold alloys range in the 10 to 22 karat range with 16 karat gold being the most common.  A 10 karat crown would have 41.6% gold while a 22 karat crown would have 91.5% so there can be a big difference in value even for two crowns of the exact same weight.

Dentists also use a lot of silver-colored alloys for crowns and bridges that can have high precious metal content.   Despite their color, they may have a fairly sizeable proportion of gold or be made with other precious metals like platinum or palladium.  Unfortunately, without testing equipment, it is often difficult to tell the difference between these precious alloys and other “white” alloys that have no scrap value whatsoever.

Of course, the price of gold on the day your gold crowns are received for refining will also impact the value.

The last major variable is who you are going to sell  the scrap dental gold to.  If you sell it to the same company that is supplying you with other dental products, then they are probably just going to take a cut and pass the crowns to a precious metal refiner.    However, if you only have one or two, they may batch it with crowns and bridges from other dentists as many refiners will not accept small quantities.
If you work with us at Arch Enterprises, you do not need a minimum quantity of dental gold to receive payment. We will evaluate your items and pay you based on the weight and quality of the gold in the crowns. We have analytic equipment that can evaluate each piece individually for the gold, silver, platinum and palladium content. We pay 85% of the metal value back to you in a check in 2-3 business days.  We are endorsed by dental associations and have worked regularly with many dentists.

If you need some basic guidelines, let’s assume that the average crown weighs 2.5 grams or about .08 troy ounces (the value in which gold is traded) and that the price for the day is $1,000 per troy ounce.  Based on this, a

• A 2.5 gram crown made of 10 karat alloy (41.6% gold) would be worth (.08 x.416 x 1,000) or $33.28 before refining costs of approximately 15%
• A 2.5 gram crown made of 16 karat alloy (66.6% gold) would be worth (.08 x.666 x 1,000) or $53.28 before refining costs of approximately 15%
• A 2.5 gram crown made of 22 karat alloy (91.5% gold) would be worth (.08 x.915 x 1,000) or $73.28 before refining costs of approximately 15%

I have a 14 karat gold ring that weighs 0.3 ounces on my postal scale. Can you tell me what the value of gold in this ring is and what I should expect to get for it from a refiner? – Bob in Columbia, MO

To determine the value of gold in your 14K gold ring, there are a few issues to consider:

• Weight – Unfortunately postal scales are not accurate enough when one is considering the valuing of a gold item, but in this case, we measured the ring that you sent in and found it to actually did weigh 8 grams or 0.2822 ounces.

• Percentage of Gold – 14K Gold is supposed to contain 58.24% gold while the rest is typically made up of copper, zinc, nickel, and other metals.  We ran your ring through our X-Ray analyzer and found that it actually contained 66.89% gold.  See Video Clip.

• Price of Gold – On July 22, the price of gold closed at $951.42 per ounce.  Keep in mind that gold is valued in troy ounces and Americans typically think of an ounce as what is termed a avoirdupois ounce.  Troy ounces actually weigh a little more than avoirdupois ounces so you actually have less than .2822 troy ounces of gold.  To get your value in troy ounces, you would actually have to multiply .2822 avoirdupois ounces by .912.

So, the amount of pure gold in your particular 14K gold ring weighing .2822 avoirdupois ounces with a gold percentage of 66.89% was 0.18877 ounces.  To figure out its value in troy ounces, we mulitplied this number by .912 to get 0.172 Troy Ounces.  Mulitplying this by today’s rate for gold of $951.52 and your gold is worth $163.79.

Of course, the refiner needs to melt this into a form that someone wants and make a profit so you should expect anywhere from 70% to 90% of this value from a refiner.  Most refiners won’t deal in quantities this low.  At Arch Enterprises, we do, but we pay on a scale that ranges from 80% for those who send in less than 1 ounce of pure gold to over 90% for those sending in over 2 ounces.