Gold is a historically highly sought after metal. Gold has been found in ancient civilizations. If you want to purchase gold jewelry or bullion, you will want to avail yourself of the tips presented here.

Get valuations for your tangible gold from a handful of dealers at a minimum. There are a large number of venues for selling your gold, and they each have different target margins. When you get an estimate from more than one, you can help to ensure you’re getting a fair price on the gold you’re selling.

Only sell to reputable buyers. Check the reputation using the BBB and online reviews. A buyer with a good reputation is going to give you a better deal for the gold you have, and they probably will have great customer service too. Do your homework in order to safeguard both you and your financial investment.

Fair Price

Check out current market values before you ever sell any jewelry. That way you will be able to ascertain if a dealer is providing you with a fair price or not for your pieces. Dealers typically give a fair price, but there are some unscrupulous ones out there. They may take advantage if they think you want to unload your piece fast.

If you want to unload scrap gold pieces or jewelry items for cash, do your homework first. Even though the market “spot” gold price is the national standard, not all stores will pay it. The overhead of the store involved may determine how much or little they are able to offer.

If you are looking to sell gold, the first thing you need to figure out is if you’re going to offer it up as an entire jewelry piece, or seek the melt value. You will see that pawn shops and private buyers only pay melt value. It may take longer to find the right buyer, but you will get more money this way.

Spot Price

Make sure you know the spot price of gold the day you plan to buy or sell. Many websites contain this information and it varies every day. Never buy something listed at more than ten percent of the spot price. If you find a dealer asking for more than 8%, they’re overcharging and may not be ethical.

Never pass up an opportunity to search for gold in a thrift shop or antique store. If you have an idea of what you are seeking, you can really find a bargain in these places. Seller don’t always know the value of the gold they own. You can benefit from the seller’s loss if you research a bit.

You can easily test whether a gold piece of jewelry is real by using a simple magnet. Precious metals, such as gold, are not magnetic. In some cases, individual parts of a piece (like the clasp) may be solid gold while other parts are plated. That’s a great way to make sure.

Talk to a rep at a gold party to see how they figure out the number of karats in a jewelry piece. Many pieces of jewelry will be stamped with a karat rating. Sometimes, however, there is no visual sign, so many representatives have other methods of figuring it out. Dealers using an acid test may be newcomers, as this is a very basic test.

You now know more about how gold is valued and the reason why people around the world treasure it. This wise investment is great for both short term and long term investments. Take the things you’ve learned from the above article and use them to your advantage when dealing with gold.