Items that contain the most gold by weight are those that are made from 24-karat gold or are as close to pure gold as possible. However, these items might not be very common due to the softness of pure gold. (Pure gold is 24 karats, but it's very soft and malleable, making it less suitable for jewelry that needs to withstand daily wear.)

Gold is all around us. It’s in the jewelry we don’t wear anymore, in the old cellphones that are gathering dust in our homes, and of course, in our cars. 

But just because gold is present doesn’t always mean it is worth recycling, for one of these reasons:

Most small companies are run by businessmen and businesswomen who are committed to doing business honestly. Even if you have a dispute with them or they have done something that strikes you as less than honorable, they are likely to try to “make things right.” After all, they want to maintain a good reputation and avoid getting negative reviews online.

“Eureka! After California’s Heavy Rains, Gold Seekers Are Giddy,” an article that Thomas Fuller published in The New York Times on April 22, 2023, reports that the recent heavy rains in California have caused a lot of gold to wash into streams in the state. He profiles one prospector who pulled $100 worth of gold out of a stream after only 20 minutes of hunting. That’s a pretty impressive haul.

The good news is, you have scrap gold you would like to sell for top dollar. The scrap could be a batch of old gold-filled eyeglass frames, a box full of sputtering targets that were used in electroplating operations, or even a collection of old gold-plated costume jewelry. 

You might not know how much gold your scrap contains – you need to have it tested. But you do know that you would like to sell it and reclaim the value of the gold it contains. 

People tend to think that recovering the gold from gold scrap is a straightforward process. You heat the scrap to a high temperature and then collect the gold that was in it, right?

Well, it’s not that simple. Recycling gold scrap can also be a complex process, and there are several mistakes that can reduce both the quality and the quantity of gold that is obtained during recycling.

Remember, gold can be found in various types of ores that occur in nature. Most often, you will find mining companies have set up operations to extract them from the ground. In other cases, those mining companies once had set up operations in those locations to mine gold but have since extracted all the gold they could from the ground and have shut down. 

Many people believe that Archimedes (c. 287 – c. 212 BC), the Greek mathematician and scientist, invented the karat system of classifying the purity of gold that is still used today. Although he was an historically important astronomer, engineer, inventor, and mathematician, he didn’t!

White gold is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal – sometimes more than one. Those additional metals could be nickel, silver, palladium, and/or zinc. Sometimes a little copper is added too, to make the alloy less brittle and easier to shape. But only a little copper can be added, because if you add too much of it to gold, the resulting alloy becomes pinkish in hue. (That’s where so-called pink gold comes from.)

Christmas always brings a lot of new presents into my house. It’s a great time of year. 

But while I was shopping this week, I started to think about some of the presents I got in years past. Some of them are still in their original boxes, unopened! Wouldn’t this be a great time to pull those old presents out and decide to start using them now and if not, whether to sell them. 

It could also be a time to remove printed circuit boards from some of them and reclaim the gold and silver they contain. Maybe you are like me and have old items lying around that could contain precious metals that can be removed and recycled profitably. 

. . . But They Still Won’t Make You Any Money

We are going to start today’s post with a quiz. So get ready to test your knowledge about gold and gold scrap.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that we believe that gold scrap is one of the smartest investments you can make, for this reason . . .

You can invest in gold scrap at advantageous prices (in other words, you can buy it for prices that are lower than the current trading price), then you can conveniently have us process it for you, then you will promptly get paid for your gold at current trading prices.

That explains why many smart investors are actively investing in gold scrap today – and making a lot of money doing it.

If you search for “class rings” on eBay, you are going to find a lot of them for sale. There are old high school rings and old college rings. And if you visit a junk shop, an antique store or even a pawnshop, chances are you will find class rings for sale in them too. Why? There are a lot of reasons. Sometimes when people need cash, an old school ring is the first thing they think of selling. And then there is the unfortunate fact that when people pass away, their heirs often end up with the deceased person’s valuables, which often include a class ring or two.

It’s easy to junk a car. You call a local company that runs ads that say, “We buy cars” and they come and tow your car away.

Yes, that’s easy. But if you dispose of your old car that way, chances are good you will be giving away gold, silver and other valuable materials that can be worth $100.00 or more. So . . . pull them out before you junk that car and talk to us about recycling them.

While we were working online just the other day, an ad popped up urging us to buy a collectible U.S. coin from a company that was not affiliated with the U.S. Government. A few days later when we were watching TV, a similar ad appeared, also pitching collectible coins that were supposed to increase dramatically in value.

We are not accusing the companies that were behind those products of outright dishonesty. In our country, after all, any company is free to manufacture and sell any products it likes, provided the organization is not engaging in outright fraud. In the end, it is up to the buyer to beware and make an intelligent decision about whether to buy what is being offered.

Canada is the fifth largest producer of mined gold in the world, following behind China, Russia, Australia, and the United States. A trip to Canada to look for gold in streams could be a good idea or, at the very least, a profitable and fun adventure.

Here’s some information that will add to your adventure and possibly your profits too.

With Hispanic Heritage Month taking place now, it seems like a good time to ask how much gold has been mined in Latin America over the past centuries.

To be sure, there is a long, fabled and strong historical link between gold and Latin America. Back in the 16th Century, Spanish monarchs became obsessed with the idea that there were as many as seven cities in South America that were made of gold. They even believed that there was an emperor named El Dorado, who was clothed with golden garments and ruled these cities. So in 1540, Spain sent an explorer named Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to the New World, where he searched in vain for these golden cities.

Fake gold bullion bars and coins look like the real things. Because they are covered with real gold, they can pass tests done with gold testing kits, and can fool experts. And according to a growing number of news reports, more and more people are being conned into buying them.

Some recent news . . .

Most people own at least one piece of jewelry that has broken. Do you?

I happen to own a watch that is damaged. One of the watch’s four lugs (the little bars where the watch band attaches) has broken off. I contacted the company that made the watch and a customer service representative told me that I could send it in and pay a $75.00 service fee to find out how much it would cost to have the lug soldered back on. But since the watch is not worth much more than $100.00, I just put it away, and there it sits.

When a community pool reopened in a suburban town a few weeks ago, a pool service was called in to service the filtration system. Usually, servicing the pool is pretty routine. But this year, the technicians found more jewelry in the system than usual – jewelry that swimmers had lost last year. There were two platinum engagement rings, a bunch of earrings, and pieces of costume jewelry. And when the technicians removed a perforated drain cover from the floor of the pool, they found still more jewelry.