Selling placer gold

[blackrabbit]

I recently sold an ounce of nice, clean very small nuggets to a local smelter when the gold price was $1003.per oz.

They gave me $650 for the ounce after only a visual evaluation ...saying most stuff like this is only about 80% pure ...I needed $$$ so took it but feel I could have done better.

Where do you sell to get an honest price?

Thanks!

[29 Prospector]

Check with El Dorado here on the forum.

Very Honest and fair

OL'29er

[Allen in MT]

That seems awfully low. At $1003.00 I would have given you about $850.00 which is 85%.

Allen

[old gold miner]

Try selling it over EBAY & get paid via paypal.

Placer gold flakes often sell near or at spot on ebay.

Many small local jewelers buy it for fine inlay work.

Most placer gold I have mined runs from 815, to about 890 fine.

Very fine dust often runs 925 to 945 fine.

No way would I accept $650 an ounce, if spot was over $1K, day of sale.

The bigger nuggets, often sell spot + 20 to 30%

Nuggets over 1/4 ounce & up often sell spot + 30% and far higher.

Just depends how big they are & the shape of them.

Better luck next time.

[chuck,tx2]

I wish I had been able to hang on to my small gold back when spot was $250 an oz. I sold the small nuggets for $300 an oz. Had no trouble getting $622 an oz. for the larger stuff.

Living 1300 miles from the nearest gold, Truck trailer the latest Mine Lab, gas & trying to keep grocery's on the table. Demanded I sell it as I FOUND It For Gracie got kind of contrary when the grub got low.

[Reno Chris]

blackrabbit -

There are several good refiners out there, but one of the things you need to do is not get yourself into situations where you are forced to take bad offers. I know a lot of guys who need the money from gold to get by have that kind of situation, so be careful with your bankroll so are not forced into taking the "I gotta have the money right now" price even when you know full well the other guy is ripping you off. The faster you need the money, the fewer your options. You can sell on ebay, but that can take a month or more by the time you put it up for auction, sell it, get the money sent to you, etc.

If you sell to a real refiner, you neeed to send in maybe 5 ounces or more. They will pay you about 97% of spot, but charge you for an assay, and a minimum handing fee of around $200. It will also take a few weeks for you to get your money. So if you have one ounce of placer, thats going to be maybe 85% pure, they will charge $200 minumum, and at $1003, you would get $652 - just about exactly what you got. What you got for one ounce is pretty much "normal" for a refiner when handling real small lots. However if you sent in 5 ounces of placer, you'd get $4062, a much better price per ounce.

Have you seen those refiners that advertise on TV suggesting you sent in your old broken gold jewelry for cash? They pay about $20 for every $100 worth of gold sent in to them (such a bargain!)

I've used Hoover and Strong, and they are reasonable, but they have terms and charges and like I said, you need to be sending in 5 or more ounces to really make it worthwhile.

Chris

[Allen in MT]

I agree with RC

we tried a few different companies and settled on David H Fell & Co www.dhfco.com

There is a $35.00 assay fee nothing else, plus our shipping charge which was about $48.00 registered mail and we sent in the 25oz lot to get a better price. You can get a quick pay or a 10 day pay and get 1/4 of a % more which we did. They took a 2.250% recovery fee. So we got 97.750% of spot. It assayed at 83.63%.They lock in on London PM fix the day after recieving your shipment.

As Chris stated the more you send in the more you get, but check to see what kind of fees they have, one outfit we sent to had over 200.00 in fees so we don't use him anymore.

Allen in MT

[sawmill]

I agree with Allen. I sell all of my placer to

David H Fell. They will take even small amounts

and the charges are minimal.So far all the gold

I have sent has averaged in the high 90's for

purity. The turn around time on pay is fast too.

I average 97 percent spot price too.

The thing I really like about them is that if you

have a question,they will reply in short order and

you will not be talking to a flunky.

I have found them to be really fair,and totally

honest.

[old gold miner]

Years back (79/80), I sold a lot of placer gold.

One trip to LA CA, sold 10 ounces of minus 10 to 40 mesh dust to an oriental jeweler for 80% of spot price.

Next trip to deliver more, I noticed some very nice nuggets with chain bezels soldered on, in his retail display case, ranging from ¼ to 1 ounce, in weight.

I asked him where he got them, as they were very nice flat well shaped specimen nuggets.

He smiled & took one out for me to inspect.

Close inspection, with a loop showed them to be real nice nuggets.

He laughed more & told me to follow him into his back room work area.

There he showed me, how he took the dust I sold him, weighed out a ¼ ounce, slagged it into a flat puddle with a jewelers torch, and once cooled a bit flipped it over and torched it a little more, so both sides were rounded & it had a nice irregular shape.

He then dropped it into a very small polishing tumbler, with fine polishing grit in it & turned the tumbler on.

A few minutes later, out came a nugget, I could not tell from a natural one.

Cast nuggets anyone can spot in a minute.

But, these, were as natural looking as, any real nugget I had ever seen.

Sure fooled me.

[El Dorado]

My instructor at the goldsmithing school taught me how to "MAKE" some very nice nuggets.... I have refused to do so, even when customers have asked. Very unscrupulous even if placer gold is used !