I have recently come in to possession of a quantity of gold that my Dad got by sluicing in a river.
Now I am in the position of having to place a value on it, and give the monetary equivalent to my stepmother.
Where do I go to have it assayed?
I checked out the Denver Mint web-site but they don’t appear to do that.
Should I take it to a jeweler? A rare coin dealer? A pawn shop?
Some guy named Bubba on a street corner?
I am at a loss to know where to go to have a value placed on it.
I do not trying to sell the gold, I am just trying to place a value on it.
Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks!
“am not” not “do not” DUH!
See NC DEQ: NC Geological Survey
Cone Geochemical Labs is located in Colorado and should be able to provide the services you need.
Excellent!
A place right near me in Lakewood!
Thank you so much **
Dorjan
Why pay their assay fee?
You can assume that, if the gold truly came from sluicing natural gold, it’s between 18-22 karat.
Gold today closed at about $712/ounce, US. But it takes 31.1 grams to be an ounce of precious metal, as opposed to the 28.5 grams to weigh letters/hamburger, etc.
To be fair, figure it’s 18K, 75% gold. Assuming you weigh it on a scale used to measure normal things(avodupois weight), figure out the ounces, multiply by 0.9 to convert it to troy, and then figure about $534US/ounce. NOw, this tells you the actual value of the gold today at $712US/troy ounce. But you nor she can actually get that price, because you have to sell it to someone who will eventually melt it, whether the refinery or the person who buys it from you to send to the refinery. The best you can do is probably get about 90% of that figure, and that would be from a very fair person who actually refines it or refines quite a bit. In reality, most places are gonna offer you in the neighborhood of 50%. They don’t know what you actually have.
When people bring in placer gold to us, we probably pay about 75%-80%, figuring we have to sit on it until we get enough for a melt. And you never know what carat it is, although it’s usually pretty high.
Wow, that is some good info SamClem. Thank you for that.
But now the plot thickens: my wife brought up a good point last night.
She says, by rights, I should give my step-mother the dollar equivalent
from what it was worth in 1995 because that was when my Dad died,
and she was supposed to have gotten it back then.
I only came into possession of it last month when my Sister passed away.
This is really going to be hard to figure out now!
Sheesh, I wish I had never got it now. :smack:
Go to http://oanda.com/convert/fxhistory
Put the date he died in. Then on the left table, choose XAU and USD on the right. It will tell you the value of gold on a specif date. On topday’s date in 1995 it was 449.61
Hmm. ‘By rights’, who gets the excess money? :dubious:
You know, now that I think about it, she should just get all of the money that it is worth now.
It depends. Was she entitled to the gold back in 1995? If so, why didn’t she get it?
It seems that my Sister, who recently died, was supposed to give the gold to our step-mother, per my Dad’s wishes, but for some reason she (my sister) hung onto it.
Now that she (my sister)has passed, each of us siblings got an even share of it, by her wishes. None of us were even aware it existed until last month.
But now that the story is starting to leak out I don’t feel right having something that rightfully belongs to my step-mother, so I am trying to give it to her.
I wrote to her explaining the situation, and asked her if she wanted the gold itself, or the monetary equivalent.
She chose the latter.
Good for you for trying to get the best price for her. I retract my :dubious: .
If it was supposed to pass to her in 1995, it is possible she would have hung on to it until now so she probably deserves the present value.
Thank you. It feels better to do the right thing by her, even though I haven’t seen or communicated with her these past 12 years. It was lucky that I was even able to locate her after all this time.