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Gold Trade Terms
- Spot Price - the price that 0.999 Gold is selling for at a specific point of time.
- Of Pure - a term used by Gold
Buyers that refers to 0.999 Gold. (Usually used when discussing "Spot
Price").
Example 1: Buyer offers you 85% of pure and you are selling 100 grams of 10k scrap. "PURE" refers to the 41.7 grams of pure gold the 100 grams of 10k contains and the buyer is offering to pay 85% of "Spot Price".
Example 2: 10k gold is 41.7% gold ( 100 grams 10k x 41.7 = 41.7 grams "of Pure" x "Spot Price" per gram x 85% = the price the buyer will pay you. Our Gold Bid Calculator can figure this for you.
- Investor - a party that
purchases and holds assets in hopes of achieving capital gain or cash
flow, not as a profession or for short-term income
- Trader - a person who buys and
sells gold, stock or other commodities and futures in hope
for short-term profits.
- Scrap - a term used to describe
recyclable materials left over from every manner of product
consumption. Often confused with waste, scrap in fact has significant
monetary value.
- Lot - Several mixed pieces of scrape
- Clean Lot - A lot of scrap that consist of only gold, no stones or other non gold items.
- Aqua regia or aqua regis - (Latin for royal water or king's water) - is a highly corrosive yellow or red solution, also called nitro-hydrochloric acid. The mixture is formed by mixing concentrated nitric acid and concentrated hydrochloric acid. It was named so because it can dissolve the so-called "royal metals," or "noble metals", gold, Silver and platinum. However, tantalum, iridium, osmium, titanium and a few other metals are also capable of withstanding it.
- Lock in - as in lock in your price (agreement to buy or sell
a specific amount of gold at a set price in the near future, no matter
what the spot price is when the delivery date comes.
- 24K gold - is 99.9% pure gold or higher.
- 22k gold - contains 22 parts gold and 2 parts of one or more additional metals, making it 91.67% gold.
- 18K gold - contains 18 parts gold and 6 parts of one or more additional metals, making it 75% gold.
- 14K gold - contains 14 parts gold and 10 parts of one or more additional metals, making it 58.3% gold.
- 12K gold - contains 12 parts gold and 12 parts of one or more additional metals, making it 50% gold.
- 10K gold - contains 10 parts gold and 14 parts of one or more additional metals, making it 41.7% gold. 10K gold is the minimum karat that can be called "gold" in the United States.
- 8K gold - contains 8 parts gold and 16 of one or more additional metals, making it 33.3% gold. 8k gold cannot be called gold in the United States.
- Dental Gold - 12K to 18k (You will want Gold Test Needles to narrow it down.)
- European gold jewelry is marked with numbers that indicate their percentage of gold, 18K gold - is marked 750 to indicate 75% gold 14K gold - is marked 585 for 58.5% K gold - is marked 417 for 41.7%
- Plumb Gold - Gold that meets the stamped karat content. An assurance that gold is not under karated which was allowed before 1976. A stamp in a ring such as 14KP means the item is plumb (the P does not stand for plated), having the full 14 parts gold and 10 parts alloy. An item marked 14K in the USA can be ½ karat short of 14/24 gold (58.33% ). Same is true of 10k through 24K. KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN CALCULATING BUY AND SELL PRICES.
- WHITE GOLD: An alloy of gold that has nickel as the main agent for creating the silvery color. Needs to be rhodium plated on a regular basis to maintain a bright white color or it will turn slightly yellowish. Not found in nature.
- YELLOW GOLD: The natural color of pure gold is a deep yellow. As the alloys increase the color of the gold begins to pale. Therefore, 18K yellow gold has a deeper color than 14K or 10K yellow gold.
- ROSE GOLD: Gold has been alloyed with copper and silver
producing a pink tint. Tends to tarnish more quickly than other gold
alloys.
- GOLD PLATE: A base metal that is electroplated with gold. Also known as gold flash, gold finish, gold tone or gold dipped.
- GOLD FILLED: A layer of gold bonded to a base metal. The weight of gold must be 1/20th of the total weight or more and must be 10K or better. Wears better than gold plated items because there is much more gold.
- BULLION: Any refined precious metal, such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, which is in a state or condition where its value depends primarily upon its precious metal content and not its form.
- BASE METAL: Any non-porous metal which is often electroplated or bonded with gold.
- VERMEIL: Gold plated over silver.
- Sterling Silver: is of 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metal (usually copper).
- Mexican silver: generally contains less than 90% fine silver.
- Troy Ounce - is the only ounce used in the pricing of precious metals, gold, platinum, and silver .The troy ounce (ozt) is 480 grains, a grain is exactly 64.79891 mg; hence one troy ounce is exactly 31.1034768 g, rounded to 31.1g. The gram is the weight most used in trading precious metals.
- Avoirdupois Ounce - (oz) sometime referred to as a Commodity
ounce is equal to 437.5 grains (28.35 grams). 3.63 grams less than the
Troy ounce (ozt). Avoirdupois ounce should never be used in
pricing precious metals (beware some people don’t know this and weigh
their gold using a Commodity ounce scale (letter scale) and advertise
it for sale.
- Penny Weight - a unit of 24 grains or 1/20 of an Troy ounce (1.555 grams). Abbreviation: dwt, pwt . A term mostly used (in this writers opinion) to confuse the less knowledgeable buyer or seller.
- Carat - (abbreviation ct or kt) is a measure of the purity of gold alloys. In the United States and Canada, the spelling karat is used. The carat as a unit of mass equal to 200 mg (0.007055 oz), and it is used for measuring gemstones and pearls. Sometimes known as the metric carat which is divisible into one hundred points of two milligrams each. Here are several ways to express 1 carat as in diamond carat: 1 ct. = 1/5 gram, 100 points, 200 milligrams or 4 grainier. (not often used in a retail environment).
- POINT - is 1/100 of a carat. 0.75 carats is equal to 75 points
- Platinum - a shiny white silvery metal used to make fine jewelry. It resistance to wear , tarnish, excellent resistance to corrosion and high temperatures and has stable electrical properties. It can be corroded by halogens, cyanide's, sulfur, and caustic alkali. Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric or nitric acid, but dissolves in aqua regia to form chloroplatinic acid, H2PtCl6.
- The Platinum Group of Metals:
Six related metals belong to the Platinum Group of Metals PGM: Platinum, Rhodium, Iridium, Palladium, Ruthenium and Osmium.
Platinum Marks
Jewelry can contain different percentages of pure platinum. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) publishes guidelines for acceptable marking standards for platinum jewelry sold in the US.
Platinum content is usually expressed as the amount of pure platinum the jewelry contains in parts per thousand. Think about it like this... you mix up a huge bucket of SAND and GRAVEL that contains 1,000 ounces--900 hundred of the ounces are SAND and 100 are GRAVEL. That makes the SAND 900 parts per thousand of your mix. Another way to express this is to say that SAND makes up ninety percent of the mix--900 divided by 1000.
Jewelry that contains at least 950 parts per thousand of pure platinum may be marked or described as "Platinum"
Jewelry that contains 850, 900 or 950 parts per thousand of pure platinum may be marked "Plat" or "Pt" if a number is used in front of the term to disclose the amount of pure platinum in the mix, such as
"850 Plat" or "850 Pt", or
"950 Plat" or "950 Pt"
Jewelry that contains at least 950 parts per thousand of platinum group metals, with at least 500 parts per thousand of the total pure platinum, may be marked as platinum as long as the numbers of each metal are disclosed. For instance,
"600 Pt. 350 Ir." or 600 Plat. 350 Irid." for 600 parts pure platinum and 350 parts iridium
"550Pt. 350Pd. 50Ir." or "550Plat. 350Pall. 50Irid." for 550 parts pure platinum, 350 parts palladium and 50 parts iridium
The FTC is currently considering a request to allow manufacturers to mark jewelry as platinum even if it contains metals that are not part of the platinum group.
Platinum test acid cannot confirm the percentage of Platinum there is in the test item.
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