Because gold was cheaper in years past, it was commonly used to decorate all kinds of relatively inexpensive items that can be easy to find – and undervalued - today.

Here are some common gold-plated and gold-filled items and forms of gold scrap that are worth snapping up in today’s market.

Let’s say you’re roaming through an antique store and you find two eyeglass frames. One is stamped “gold filled” and the other has no markings.

What is the difference between them, and which contains more gold? Don’t worry, in today’s post, we are going to tell you.

We have watched stories about it on Fox News and other news channels. We have read about it in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. 

What are we talking about? We are talking about the fact that flooding in California has exposed veins of gold that have been hidden for decades. Some of these hidden deposits of gold were apparently not discovered during the famous gold rush of 1849. And now, a lot of prospectors who have heard the news about a new gold rush are heading to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to pan for gold in streams. Some of them are reportedly using more than pans to look for gold; they are bringing in sophisticated equipment to look for it.

...When You Recycle These Gold-Plated Items

While you’re poking around at the antiques mall you notice a pair of gold-plated earrings sitting in a tray. You could snag them for less than $10.00, but why bother? They are going to contain only maybe 50 cents worth of gold at best. So you walk on by and keep looking for more interesting items.

Watching Downton Abbey can alert you to all kinds of antique precious-metal items that you can find if you’re shopping online, at antique stores, at estate sales . . . just about everywhere old metal items can be found. Here’s a checklist of items that we noticed during just one episode of the show...