When you sell gold, you have to be aware of the metal's current price. Selling gold that isn't collectible — there's nothing about the design or history of the item that would make people pay more than the value of the materials — means that the money you get paid will be based on whatever gold itself is selling for. If you have no reference point, it's too easy for an unscrupulous buyer to take advantage of you.
This is why you want to pay close attention to the "spot price" of gold. That's the price gold is selling for at any individual time. When you know the spot price and when you know the percentage you're supposed to get, then you can better protect yourself and ensure that you're getting the money you're truly owed.
It Can Have Some Substantial Highs and Lows
The spot price functions a bit like a stock price. It rises or falls depending on different issues such as demand and supply, reputation, and so on. Ups and downs are normal but tend to be relatively small from minute to minute. However, like stocks, gold can have some swings in price that seem to come out of nowhere. Note that these aren't always catastrophic drops or dizzying increases. Sometimes you find that gold suddenly plunged all of $5 or $10 dollars one day. With gold prices so high to begin with (in the thousands per ounce), that may not sound so bad. But if you're selling a lot of gold, that small drop can add up. You'd want to wait to see what the price did before selling your old gold jewelry, if possible. Charts are available online.
Always Check It Right Before You Visit Gold Buyers
It's not possible to predict exactly what the price of gold will do. Experts can certainly predict that gold may go up or down in response to some news, but the actual prices it hits are anyone's guess until they happen. So the bad news is that you can't fully rely on price charts to tell you exactly what you'll get for sure, but you can look at them and see how gold has been doing over the past day, week, month, and so on. When you see that gold has been relatively steady with only minor ups and downs, that may be your cue to call the gold buyer you've decided to go to and set up an appointment for that day. Don't schedule for the next day because that gives the price too much time to change on you.
Once you make your appointment, keep checking the price right before you go. You can't control the price, but this monitoring gives you a better chance of avoiding selling during surprise drops. By the way, gold buyers won't pay you 100 percent of the spot price; they'll pay a percentage. That makes it even more important to know what gold is selling for to ensure you get paid as much as possible.
If you want to sell gold, reach out to a buyer near you.
