Selling gold - how, why, where

[Teemore]

I might set up a little stall on the corner of Ford & Camp streets and undercut those prices about 25% n still make a killing.

Picked it in 1 ..... you ever been in the store, assume when overseas travel is a goer they probably sell a bit.

 

[user 4485]

Tourist traps have been selling gold like that for years around here.
Bit like the old fishing trip story of the bloke who goes fishing all day/weekend for nought only to stop at the fish shop on the way home. All good until someone notices the newspaper stuck to it. :lol:

All gold is unique but apart from crystalline gold, striated/ribbon/leaf gold or specimens that catch a collector's eye IMO your going pretty well if you can get anything close to the spot price.
If people can get a bit more or a tourist wants to pay a bit more good luck to them I reckon.

 

[jethro]

I might set up a little stall on the corner of Ford & Camp streets and undercut those prices about 25% n still make a killing.

Picked it in 1 ..... you ever been in the store, assume when overseas travel is a goer they probably sell a bit.

i have a coffee at the bakery and a bit of a wander through that shop occasionally if the family wants a lazy catchup. Ive never seen anyone purchase anything much in there though. I guess it must sell or they wouldnt stock it. Id rather go up the top end of town and buy some honey.

 

[Rockhunter62]

"and isn't WA gold inferior to our Victorian stuff."

Yeh, you are probably right Teemore but I'll keep my Halls Creek gold over your SDC flyshit any day.

Pretty sure this lot was about 97 percent.

Cheers

Doug

 

[Nightjar]

Hey Teemore,
Should I throw this "inferior" WA rubbish back for a few years and hope it will develop? layful:

 

[HarryHoudini]

Hey Teemore,
Should I throw this "inferior" WA rubbish back for a few years and hope it will develop? layful:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1414/1611360274_archivepotos115.jpg

One mans rubbish is another mans treasure. Not sure why it is inferior. Gold is gold

 

[user 4386]

Hey Teemore,
Should I throw this "inferior" WA rubbish back for a few years and hope it will develop? layful:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1414/1611360274_archivepotos115.jpg

One mans rubbish is another mans treasure. Not sure why it is inferior. Gold is gold

"Gold" can contain 50% silver in some cases and is never 100% (although you can get up to 99.7% with some supergene gold). It is a similar issue with silver.

"Electrum consists primarily of gold and silver but is sometimes found with traces of platinum, copper, and other metals. The name is mostly applied informally to compositions between about 2080% gold and 2080% silver atoms, but these are strictly called gold or silver depending on the dominant element".

And you are not selling something with a defined value, just an object that someone is willing to buy (although their offer if they are professionals would be based on a guess about % gold and its appearance and size).

You can't generalise about the purity of gold based on the State - it tends to vary with the type of deposit, and whether it is primary or secondary (as gold gets purified near surface by weathering). For example, some gold in Victoria at St Arnaud would exceed 50% silver but most in the central goldfields is 2-8% silver, usually 2-3%, unless it is supergene (secondary) where I have found 99.7%. However I have had closer to 20% silver around Woods Point

 

[user 4386]

Hey Teemore,
Should I throw this "inferior" WA rubbish back for a few years and hope it will develop? layful:

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1414/1611360274_archivepotos115.jpg

I'll swap you all that for an ounce of my superior Victorian gold, just so you aren't stuck with that worthless crap....

 

[user 4386]

Tourist traps have been selling gold like that for years around here.
Bit like the old fishing trip story of the bloke who goes fishing all day/weekend for nought only to stop at the fish shop on the way home. All good until someone notices the newspaper stuck to it. :lol:

All gold is unique but apart from crystalline gold, striated/ribbon/leaf gold or specimens that catch a collector's eye IMO your going pretty well if you can get anything close to the spot price.
If people can get a bit more or a tourist wants to pay a bit more good luck to them I reckon.

You can do better with large nuggets of course - size matters

 

[Teemore]

over your SDC flyshit any day.

Pretty sure this lot was about 97 percent.

Shouldn't make assumptions ... SDC is just 1 of the "tools" I use. We don't have it quite as easy as WA so have to rely on "fly oop: " to get our fix at times. One of the reasons heaps of Vic/NSW blokes head there .....

Pretty sure or ???? Testing confirms almost 99% pure (piece on the non SDC coil). Had always been told that WA gold contained more silver/copper but stand to be corrected.

 

[user 4386]

That might be a supergene analysis - silver still seems a bit high but I find Fe and Cu are more often associated with the supergene gold. Of course it can be a bit of both hypogene and supergene intergrown.

 

[user 4485]

Tourist traps have been selling gold like that for years around here.
Bit like the old fishing trip story of the bloke who goes fishing all day/weekend for nought only to stop at the fish shop on the way home. All good until someone notices the newspaper stuck to it. :lol:

All gold is unique but apart from crystalline gold, striated/ribbon/leaf gold or specimens that catch a collector's eye IMO your going pretty well if you can get anything close to the spot price.
If people can get a bit more or a tourist wants to pay a bit more good luck to them I reckon.

You can do better with large nuggets of course - size matters

Of course & sometimes more for a specific size range too if the demand is there.
But for most spot price or thereabouts is pretty good.

 

[Rockhunter62]

over your SDC flyshit any day.

Pretty sure this lot was about 97 percent.

Shouldn't make assumptions ... SDC is just 1 of the "tools" I use. We don't have it quite as easy as WA so have to rely on "fly oop: " to get our fix at times. One of the reasons heaps of Vic/NSW blokes head there .....
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...94a07-e8dc-400c-ab41-b00a2e21d5cc_1_201_a.jpg
https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...1a62d-2b15-48a0-90ef-6ee8eddb42c1_1_201_a.jpg

Pretty sure or ???? Testing confirms almost 99% pure (piece on the non SDC coil). Had always been told that WA gold contained more silver/copper but stand to be corrected.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...ad1e3-e796-4742-bf73-d76531c45b95_1_201_a.jpg

No assumtions Teemore. As Goldierocks said the purity varies all over Aus. You are lucky to have a nice sample as above. Mine was just what the professionals have stated for that particular area but if I ever get it tested I will let you know. I have found some in Qld that would only go between 83 - 87 percent. But in the long run it is all gold and it gives us a nice rush when we find a nice piece.

Cheers

Doug

 

[user 4386]

Geologically you can make some generalisations, but there are always exceptions. High silver is common in what we call epithermal volcanic deposits (widespread in Queensland). Low silver is common in what are often referred to as slate belt (eg central Victoria) or greenstone belt (e.g. Eastern Goldfields) deposits - many geologists refer to them as "gold only" deposits, although this does not refer to silver content but lack of other metals such as copper in the primary ores. Silver is invariably extremely low in supergene (weathering zone) deposits. So you can have 99.7% gold purity in the "laterites" that overlie a primary deposit in which the gold is 85% pure/

 

[Teemore]

As RockHunter indicated maybe it's Qld gold that's "inferior" ... in that I meant % gold content (sorry WA), I agree gold is gold and so far I haven't parted with any that I've found, just love the stuff too much.

Seem to recall someone selling "test pieces" around 0.10gm for $25 a pop ...... that's $250 per gram, less the cost of a display pod (bugger all in bulk) and standard postage ........ a very nice little earner at well above the going rate and with the proliferation of GM users sold very quickly.

Ebay prices seem to range from $80+ to round mid $120's

As I originally stated selling privately CAN be more profitable than selling through the usual gold buyer channels.

 

[Banjo68]

Gold is gold
We find it in the ground
Doesn't matter what state you find it
It is Australian gold
You/we are privileged to be out there finding it
To me it's not about the purity
It's just about what we do.
We are lucky people :goldnugget: :goldpan: ickshovel:
There are no borders in my opinion
It's all Australia

 

[user 4485]

Australian native gold is sought after because it has a high purity regardless of state.
Can't remember where this came from but the below was supposed to be the median average of each state. Could also be lower or higher.
Tasmania 92 - 98%
Victoria 92 - 98%
New South Wales 92 - 98%
Queensland 92 - 98%
South Australia 88 - 96%
Northern Territory 88 - 96%
Western Australia 85 - 95%
Some other countries can be as low as 60% I believe.

 

[user 4485]

As I originally stated selling privately CAN be more profitable than selling through the usual gold buyer channels.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=568926#p568926

 

[user 4386]

Australian native gold is sought after because it has a high purity regardless of state.
Can't remember where this came from but the below was supposed to be the median average of each state. Could also be lower or higher.
Tasmania 92 - 98%
Victoria 92 - 98%
New South Wales 92 - 98%
Queensland 92 - 98%
South Australia 88 - 96%
Northern Territory 88 - 96%
Western Australia 85 - 95%
Some other countries can be as low as 60% I believe.

Mbasko, that is about the same as saying that a man with one foot in ice and the other in boiling water is at a nice average temperature - as I noted above it varies all over the place within a State. To quote the Geological Survey of Victoria "The mineralogy and geochemistry of the gold mineralisation show broad regional variations. The fineness [1000 gold/(gold + silver)] of most mesozonal orogenic gold is greater than 920 (92%), but in the Stawell Zone it is commonly less than 750 (75%) and occasionally less than 300 (30%)." It mostly varies with type of deposit. A different price per ounce was paid for gold in each different Victorian goldfield (so it could be less than half as much in parts of the Stawell Zone (e.g. St Arnaud) compared with say the Ballarat goldfield. One cannot assume unless you are very familiar with local variation and very sure where gold comes from. Try selling parcels of alluvial gold from mixed sources to a gold buyer.....

 

[Teemore]

A lot of getting away from the reason for the topic, forget about purity most people just want a piece of gold .......

Very simply to me it's stupid to sell 20x 0.6gm nuggets (12gms) to a buyer at spot price less 5-10% when it can be sold privately at between $80 - $120 per gram through private sales.

Might be different if you've got multiple grams of alluvial flakes ...