What should I do with this ingot of gold?

[Biggirl]

The Gold Fairy left it on my doorstep. It weighs about a pound. I figure it's worth between $3000 and $4000. I wanted to get a livingroom set, but the furniture store wouldn't take it. The used car salesman wouldn't take it either. The guy at the jewlery store offered me $1000 for it. The chiseler.

Now I have this shiny lump of metal sitting on my kitchen floor. What should I do with it?

[Una Persson]

Am I missing something here?

[red_dragon60]

Please say you aren't joking! Please!

Send it to me, I'll give you ten bucks plus shipping. That sounds like quite a chunk. I'll melt it down and make bullets out of it. No, I am thinking of silver.

Well, give it to me, and I'll make tha pimpinest gold chains you homes eva seen!

[Green Bean]

You can give it to me. Hell, I'll even come pick it up.

(I don't have an answer to your question, BTW.)

[peace]

Keep it as a paperweght.
If you want to sell it, try places that deal in gold ingots, do not waste your time in used car dealerships.
------------------------------------
Peace

[Biggirl]

My question (since I my OP doesn't seem to make sense) is: What is the best way to turn gold into cash? Take it to the bank? Give it to a broker? The U.S. Treasury? Melt it down into Biggirl coins?

[pantom]

Keep it period. Last 3 months gold stocks have been moving up. The metal itself hasn't yet, but given that we're in something like the bazzilionth year of a bear market in gold, you just might be on the cusp of a new bull.
'Course you coulda said this at any time in the past twenty years or so...

[Green Bean]

Naw, your OP made sense.

Now that I think of it, I often hear ads for Empire Diamond and Gold Buying Service, located in the Empire State Building. Perhaps you could sell it to them. I wonder if you'd get a fair price.

[Una Persson]

AH. I get it now.

This is actually a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Many large coin shops act as silver and gold bullion dealers, in that they will sell and buy small ingots of both materials, as well as coins intended for bullion use. But you will get a price significantly below the "market" price. And sometimes they will either refuse to take a large amount, or will actually try to charge you a "handling fee" for them doing the "service" of taking the gold or silver off of your hands. :eek:

I recommend EBay. Seriously - you are likely to get a price closest to the market price on there, ahead of any other way I can discover.

[Dr. Lao]

I always thought you could turn the gold over to the federal reserve and they would give you green-backs for it. After a cursory web search, however, I was unable to confirm this. I take it, Anthracite, this isn't possible?

[bibliophage]

Look in the Yellow pages under Gold silver and platinum buyers and dealers. By the way one pound avoirdupois of pure gold should be worth about $3,934 by my calculation. You probably don't have one pound avoirdupois.

Avoirdupois weight is the sort used for measuring cucumbers, slabs of beef, and people. A troy ounce (used for measuring precious metals) weighs more than an ounce avoirdupois, but there are only 12 troy ounces in a troy pound. The ignot could be a one-troy pound ingot (rather unlikely, I think) or a half kilogram. A troy pound is worth $3,288 and a half-kilogram would be worth $4,405 at $274 per troy ounce.

[Montfort]

I'm curious -- how did you get the Gold Fairy to visit you, and can I have her visit me, too?

[bibliophage]

List of 16 gold buyers in Brooklyn (http://yp.infospace.com/info.go555/searchyp?srchyp=1&?QC=brooklyn&QS=ny&BP=1&QK=20&QB=a1329600&25112)
List of 22 gold buyers in Manhattan (http://yp.infospace.com/info.go555/searchyp?srchyp=1&?QC=New+York&QS=ny&BP=1&QK=20&QB=a1329600&03644)

I have never bought or sold precious metals, but I know some people who have bought silver bars. I'm sure you won't get quite as much per ounce as you will see listed in the financial section of your newspaper. I would guess you would get about 95% that price, maybe as much as 98%. This is assuming we're talking about essentially pure gold (.999). Old ingots are not this pure and may be only about 90% gold.

[Biggirl]

Originally posted by Montfort
I'm curious -- how did you get the Gold Fairy to visit you, and can I have her visit me, too?

When you lose a limb you have to put it under your pillow before you go to sleep.
Boy will the NY Dopers be surprised when the see me at the Fest!

Anyways. . .
There as got to be faster-easier-more profitable ways to turn gold into cash than Ebay and the telephone book.

If I call a dealer, how much would his take be? If I sell it on Ebay, how likely would it be that someone would bid on it? Who would? Probably the dealers, right? On Ebay they'd have to bid against each other head-to-head.

[Gunslinger]

Originally posted by Dr. Lao
I always thought you could turn the gold over to the federal reserve and they would give you green-backs for it. After a cursory web search, however, I was unable to confirm this. I take it, Anthracite, this isn't possible?
Maybe 60 years ago, but we're not on the Gold Standard anymore. So that's a negative, Doc.

[Biggirl]

I didn't see the biblio's post until after I posted mine. 98% of market value sounds good to me. Are they going to ask me where I got it from?

[Upham]

My advies, buy a WHOLE FRIGGIN MESS of what ever it was you were smokin', and have a Merry Xmass

[Biggirl]

Originally posted by Upham
My advies, buy a WHOLE FRIGGIN MESS of what ever it was you were smokin', and have a Merry Xmass

My dealer wont take the gold either.

[bagkitty]

Too bad it wasn't silver... you could melt it down, cast bullets and the go werewolf hunting

[samclem]

I do this for a living in Ohio. I am a coin dealer. A coin dealer is your best bet.

Is the ingot marked as to who made it and how much it weighs? Assuming it is, and assuming spot gold is about $270/ounce when you take it in, a reputable dealer will pay you about $260/ounce. Sell the bar and buy something useful. They may take down info from your driving license, but are not required to forward info to IRS unless you sell 25 ounces of gold at one time. The info just protects the buyer in case of stolen property.

[Montfort]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
Maybe 60 years ago, but we're not on the Gold Standard anymore. So that's a negative, Doc.
I got it! I got it!

Biggirl, you should melt it down and make a cross (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/8/0,5716,28448+1+27999,00.html?kw=cross%20of%20gold%20speech) out of it.

[justwannano]

They have Gold shows in gold country.California,Georgia etc

maybe you could ask someone there.
Also the Gold Prospectors Assn of America has a web site and an email address.http://www.goldprospectors.org/
I'll bet someone there will be able to tell you.
Actually I thought it was illegal to posess a large amount of gold.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally posted by Gunslinger
Originally posted by Dr. Lao
I always thought you could turn the gold over to the federal reserve and they would give you green-backs for it. After a cursory web search, however, I was unable to confirm this. I take it, Anthracite, this isn't possible?
Maybe 60 years ago, but we're not on the Gold Standard anymore. So that's a negative, Doc.
You've raised an interesting point. When we had the gold standard, you could take gold that you had mined, or 'found', or whatever, to your nearest U.S. Mint, where they would process it into coins and give those coins, less a processing fee, back to you. Theoretically at least, although I presume they had stocks of coins on hand which
they could give you immediately rather than having you wait until your gold was minted.

But now the Treasury does produce gold bullion coins, so
one would think they need to buy the gold for this somewhere. So maybe they do have a buying window.

[handy]

I sell metals a lot.

First of all, if it's a real ingot on the top it would have some marks or stamps, what are they?

Second before you sell it, call a store & ask for the spread. The spread is the price they would buy it & the price they would sell it. Go with the smallest spread of course.

I take mine to a guy who charges 60 cents per oz. but gives the daily market rate. So if Au is 2.00, he would give me 1.40, but often gives more.

As I said, it must have a stamp on the top. If it says 1 lb of pure Au, it's not.

[Ike Witt]

Have you considered doing a water displacement test to determine if the ingot is actually gold?

[handy]

Far as I know Au is not sold by the pound, but by the troy oz, in increments of : 1 oz, 5 oz, 10 oz

[bibliophage]

Originally posted by justwannano

Actually I thought it was illegal to posess a large amount of gold. There were very severe restrictions on gold ownership by individuals in the U.S. from 1934 until 1975. Those days are gone.

I don't know how common it is to sell ingots by the troy ounce any more. It was my understanding that the common sizes are now in metric units: 100, 500, and 1,000 grams.

[samclem]

99% of all the gold bars we sell in our coin store are 1 ounce. We do carry smaller bars which are mainly used for jewelry, which come in denominations such as 1 gram, 2.5 grams 5 grams, etc. But people who come in to buy gold as an investment usually purchase the one ounce size as it is bought and sold at a fairly low markup, not to mention the ease of figuring the price per unit they just paid.

This is just me speaking for dealing in gold in the US. YMMV.

handy said I take mine to a guy who charges 60 cents per oz. but gives the daily market rate. So if Au is 2.00, he would give me 1.40, but often gives more.

you lost me there.

[Homer]

Sell it as "Old Gold" to Auric Enterprises. I hear he pays well.

Props to whoever catches the ref.

--Tim

[Montfort]

Jeez, Homer, you're no Bricker, but we still love ya, anyway.

Goldfinger.

[Cajun Man]

But, one who dispenses gold ingots...lucky Biggirl!

[handy]

samclem, you should know what a spread is. That was a spread, buy at $1.40, sell at $2.60....


If you really want to get the market price, you can find in big cities Metal purifying comp's that pay closer to market price. I forgot exactly what they are called since it's been years since I looked for one.

[bibliophage]

Originally posted by handy
samclem, you should know what a spread is. That was a spread, buy at $1.40, sell at $2.60....
You lost us when you appear to give as your example gold costing $2 per ounce. The current price of gold is about $275 per troy ounce. Gold has never cost less than $20 per troy ounce, over the entire history of the U.S. dollar. When you pick an example it should be one that approximates reality.

[handy]

"Are they going to ask me where I got it from?"

No, but you'll have to produce a drivers license for ID.

[samclem]

Biggirl if you live on Manhattan, take it downtown to someone like MTB(Manfra, Tordella, Brooks). Or call a few diff. coin dealers from the yellow pages. Describe how the ingot is marked, and ask them their buy(making sure you get all quotes on the same day). If spot gold is $275/ounce on the COMEX, you should get quoted no worse than $265/ounce. This is fair. They might even pay more. Let us know what happens.

handy Assuming spot gold is $275/ounce, I doubt that anyone, even a refinery, will pay you $274.40/ounce and sell back to you at $275.60/ounce. They just don't work that cheap. Certainly not on a measly one pound bar.

[Biggirl]

Originally posted by samclem
Biggirl If spot gold is $275/ounce on the COMEX, you should get quoted no worse than $265/ounce. This is fair. They might even pay more. Let us know what happens.


sam, I really don't have an ingot of gold. And I am still in possesion of all my limbs. A group of friends and I were discussing what we would do if we found a big suitcase full of money and the conversation wandered into finding other things of value.

Cajun Man, as my answer I almost put "I fixed Sqrl up with Ed Asner" but I was afraid my little joke would be misconstrued.

[Green Bean]

So, while we're on the subject:

I have a little bit of gold jewelry that I don't want. I have a few single earrings and gold chains with broken clasps, etc. I'm sure it's not worth anything as jewelry, but it is solid gold. I feel a bit embarrassed walking in anyplace trying to sell it, since it is such a small amount. What would be the best way to get cash for my stash?

[samclem]

A coin dealer. The larger the dealer, the better they will pay you. You should get about $5-6/pennyweight for 14K gold and $4 or so for 10K gold. We pay $8/pennyweight for 18K gold. In a small town, you may not get this. Call a few coin dealers from your yellow pages and ask what they pay for 10K, 14K, and 18K gold scrap.
Pawn dealers, in general will not pay as much. This is not meant to disparage pawn shop owners. I wouldn't want their bizness. A hard life.

[wolfman]

This is a bit off of the subject, but it remined me of an old 'fact' I had heard a while ago. Is it true that in Arabian countries they sell gold jewlery by the weight, with no regard for the quality of the craftsmanship?

[Danielinthewolvesden]

Well, I have been to many wholesale gem shows, and many indian/paki jewelry dealers sell used silver jewelry by the gram- irregardless of the workmanship.

[Aestivalis]

My mom just bought a 24k gold bracelet for my girlfriend, and she said that they can't do any particularly intricate designs with 24k gold because it is so soft. So it's only worth its weight. It's different for 14k gold, which can hold its shape better.