In order to better understand the process of selling your gold and silver jewelry, it\’s important to know the language. This article will explain the most common terms you\’ll run into.

Alloy is a word you\’ll hear a lot. A gold alloy. Basically, alloy means mixture. Gold all by itself is a very soft metal, so is actually not recommended for jewelry, especially rings that will take a lot of banging around. Plus, it\’s expensive. To make it durable and more affordable, gold is mixed with other metals like nickel or copper. The quantity of other metals mixed in brings us to one of the most common terms, karat.

Karat is a term that indicates purity. How much gold is actually in there? The symbol for karat is k, or sometimes kt. 24 karat gold is as pure as it gets. 14 karat is the most common for jewelry. Knowing the karat content of your gold is helps you figure out how much it is worth.

If you have one ounce of 12 karat gold, you actually have just half an ounce of gold. The other half is something else, like the nickel or copper alloy it contains.How much gold you have by weight is one of the main determining factors in how much it is worth.

The standard weight measurements for Gold are Troy Ounces and Pennyweights. Neither term is common outside of the precious metals market. Pennyweight is the universally accepted measurement for gold. The symbol for pennyweight is DWT. This dates back to the dark ages so does not seem real logical today, but that\’s what it is.

There are 20 pennyweights in one troy oz. Remembering that there are twenty penny weights in one troy ounce makes gold calculations a bit more straight forward.

The term troy ounce dates back to the Roman Empire. Its symbol is ozt. One troy ounce is equal to a little over 31 grams. (31.1034768) That means one troy ounce is just a little bit more than the kind of ounces Americans are used to, the kind that is one 16th of a pound an is abbreviated oz.

London Fix is a very common term. This refers to the price of gold as determined by by the 5 members of the London Gold Market pricing board. This is the universally accepted price of gold and it changes twice every business day. It\’s often referred to as the Spot Price.

When you sell your gold or silver to a cash for gold business, you will be paid a percentage of the spot price, but not the full spot price. The percentage you get can vary greatly from dealer to dealer, so it pays to shop around. It’s also essential that your dealer post the current spot price and the price in pennyweights they are willing to pay for that day.

Armed with that information you can get a fairly accurate idea of the actual value of your gold.

Scrap is a term for metal that\’s being discarded in order to melt it down for reprocessing, which is also called refining. Scrap metal is an all-encompassing term for anything that is sellable to a cash for gold buyer. It does not sound very nice to hear of your jewelry referred to as \”scrap\” but in the eyes of a metals dealer, all that matters is the price he will receive from the refinery, which is sometimes called the melt value.

Jewelry sold to a Cash for Gold dealer is melted for recycling.

Now you know all the most common terms in the industry.

Hopefully, armed with this information you will have a better chance of surviving the ocean of sharks circulating in the Cash For Gold waters.

Tony Merlino
http://www.ScrapGoldPro.com
http://www.MyGoldCam.com

Tony Merlino
http://www.ScrapGoldPro.com
http://www.MyGoldCam.com

Author Bio: Tony Merlino
http://www.ScrapGoldPro.com
http://www.MyGoldCam.com

Category: Advice
Keywords: cash for gold, sell your gold, sell gold, sell gold and silver, gold buyers, scrap gold buyers,