My Ebay splurge this week

Item numbers: 280151035363 280150671664 120132283509 250161937138 and finally 180156703794

Now I can go fishing and read my new books in peace whilst I am waiting for the bike to be fixed to make it road legal.

The Ruby and Diamond 9crt gold ring is part of a cunning plan I am devising, it don’t involve a female participant regretfully, thinking longer term than that, the gold will be melted down has scrap every time I have accumulated 31.1 grams (1 troy ounce) of either 9, 10, 15, 18, 22 or 24 crt gold and put away some ware safe for a later date, better than any bank account.

The Rubies, Diamonds and other assorted precious stones I will accumulate from other pieces of scrap jewellery will be stored for a later date to be set into a piece of my own design or sold on depending if I like them or not.

[(JD)]

This is interesting mellors. What does it cost to melt down the gold, and how much waste is there in something like that?

When I used to do this with scrap silver, before the bottom fell out of the silver market due to digital photography, there was very little "waste" less than 1 percent gross per troy ounce, clean the material first to get rid of any surface material that shouldn’t be there, that cuts the "slag" waste produced to less than 1pct, dead skin, hair, glue or paste will all cost you money if it is still on the product when you melt it down

I always did it myself with a crucible and a gas ring off the cooker so don’t know the cost if you wanted to have it assayed (melted and stamped by a jeweller has proof of what it is) if you use a crucible and do it yourself over the cooker make sure the room is well ventilated, it smells for days

One thing I did learn was to have documented proof of the gold or silver you were melting down yourself with accurate weights, photos and descriptions of any assay markings on the jewellery to prove that it was indeed the grade of silver or gold you purport it to be when it comes time to resell it.

After researching the value of scrap gold its running at approx

9 carat @ £3.00 per gram (37.5% purity)
14 carat @ £3.00 per gram (58.3% purity)
18 carat @ £6.00 per gram (75% purity)
22 carat @ £7.50 per gram (91.67% purity)

To convert it to $ just times it by 2
The most common grade in America is the 14 carat followed by 10 carat, whereas in the UK its 9crt

Web Location whence most of this information was derived http://www.finfacts.com/Private/cure...arketprice.htm

Using this format I purchased this today of Ebay. 260158788023

Including postage it works out £3.33 per gram, and it wasn’t even sold has scrap!!

[(JD)]

Wow I'm impressed! Where did you learn to do this Mellors?

I used to prefer the 10kt because of it's heartiness, leaving 18kt for dressy occasions. I've shied towards silver for the last several years though.

I keyword searched current gold prices, followed by the current daily price offered for scrap gold to get up to date estimates, then as part of my “homework” I’ve also been watching the larger sales of gold scrap on ebay over the last week, then dividing the price paid by the weight in grams, even on smaller items to check my sums, and in less than 5 mins after I post this a job lot of 153.9 grams of 9 carat scrap is being sold on ebay for currently £460, that averages out at £3.00 per gram to prove my math was right.

Here is the item no

Item number: 220149606706

Final selling price £511
Total weight of gold 153.9 grams
Average price per gram £3.32

so thats how i work it out sky.

sky if you were me how much would you pay for his item of scrap gold due to be sold tommorrow?

Item number: 300151200718

Sky I wouldn’t even bid on it

Reason one, The description says nearly 25 grams, when on the scales it shows 24.2 that’s a long way off 25.grams gold wise

Second reason, The “novelty £1 note in a bottle?” the glass probably weighs at least 8grams if not more yet gold weight wise, top and bottom lids combined wouldn’t make 1.5 gram

Third reason, the remaining stones in the rings are worthless or he would have disclosed them has a further selling point so take at least another 6-8 grams off there as dead weight

Fourth reason, price of postage £6.00 it cost less than 25% of this price for the postage for the 153.9 grams and that included the packaging, blatent rip off

Conclusion? There is nothing with any real weight once you take out the glass, paper, and fake, but heavy stones from the rings maybe 9-10 grams of actual gold tops.

Whoever buys this lott thinking they are gonna get 25g of gold will be mighty miffed come divvy up time, wish I could be a fly on the wall for that dispute console resolution.

you have got to be real careful buying scrap gold or silver, do your homework, then do it again, mistakes can be VERY costly playing this game @ £3.00 per gram.

[(JD)]

Kewl...I was still working on converting grams to ounces

I hadn't really looked at the ad yet. But those are good things to know.

Now tell us all how you learn to melt down metals!

nicking lead of school and church roofs is how i learned to melt down metal lol keywork search crucible on ebay and you will see a cone shaped ceramic object displayed approx 12 inches (30cm) long that will hold upto 1 kilo of molten metal, you place the unmelted metal inside, put it in a furness, or bonfire, let it melt, then using steel tongs of the blacksmith variety, not out the kitchen draw, you use them to pour the molten metal into the mold of your choosing and leave it to set.

there are 31.1 grams in a troy ounce, check the link i posted earlier, all the weights and conversions you will need are on that page you just need to scroll down and read, it also has the prices of gold at end of year dating back 100 years to present date also

edited by me to add,

if you are only doing small quantities, like a troy ounce at a time you could use a steel cone thats about 1cm thick that has both a lip on one side for easy pouring, and a heatproof fixed handle so that you can hold it over a open gas flame from your cooker, this does not work with electric hobs but you can use your kitch designer oven mits, in fact i recommend you do,

oh one more tip, dont ever put the cone on the kitchen sideboard when you have finished, not even for a second whilst hot, you'll be buying a new one, kitchen that is, when you have finished take it outside and bury it in a bucket of sand if you have pets to let it cool without causing any danger.

i will let you guess what is the best pet product to use has "mini" molds, perfect for small quantities

is leaving you guessing now........

[Perna]

I have a big, old, 24k gold, signet pinky ring made in mainland China that my grandfather gave to my grandmother (they were married in 1911) and it's a bit of a pain because it molds to my finger since it's so soft and every now and then I have it "rounded" because it gets so lopsided. The inside has Chinese symbols and once I was with a friend in New York's Chinatown and there was a Chinese jeweler so we went inside and I asked him what the symbols said and he replied, "24 karat" and I said, "yes, I know, but what do the symbols say?" and it took him and my girlfriend a bit of time to get across to me that that was what the symbols said

one of the people who lives i the same house has me works in a charity shop 3 days a week so i have told him to tell me if any gold is brought in and what i will pay for it, saves me the hassle of walking around myself looking for it.

24crt gold is very pliable so i know what you mean about having to have it reshaped every now and then.

[January]

24k has a different color, too. It looks much richer.