Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Just getting started ... buying gold

I've got the gold bug, but there aren't any good mountain streams with gold nuggets anywhere near where I live. So, I'm stuck with buying gold from other people. I'm hoping I can find some folks with old gold jewelry that they would rather have cash for.

Of course, it would not be good to pay full price for some item that is only gold plated. So, my first challenge is to learn to identify real gold, and accurately appraise items.

Here's a video on using an electronic gold tester, a magnet, and a file stone:



Here's a close up of the gold cross that was testing positive for 10K gold in the video.  It's actually marked 14 KT G.F. and after some googling, I discovered that the G.F. stands for "gold filled" and that's not so good.  It really means that it has a thick gold plate, and is only 1/20th by weight 14KT gold.  So, its really not worth much if you were buying it for scrap gold.