Poll This poll is for women only please. It is to find out what kind of jewelry women like and don't like on men. Do you like men wearing jewelry, not including a watch or a wedding ring? not at all yes, but only one piece yes, more than one piece

The only ethical way to buy jewelry is to purchase it second-hand.

To produce enough gold for a ring, about 18 tons of waste ore are created. Once it’s extracted, the ore is piled into huge heaps and sprayed with cyanide. The cyanide-contaminated waste ore is usually just abandoned; miners are poorly paid and work in terrible conditions.

Buying second-hand jewelry is not only the right thing to do morally but is also a good investment. Indeed it is a great way to buy gold below the market price. There are many TV buyers doing this and then selling the jewelry to refineries; however you could just keep the jewelry. If people need to raise money in a hurry to pay off debt they will sell their jewelry for considerably less than it is worth. Our poll on the price that people would be prepared to sell a 14k gold chain for shows that 60% of respondents would be willing to sell it for 20% or less than its value and 25% of respondents would sell is for 40% less. Buying people's unwanted jewelry is probably a better way to invest in gold than buying coins or bullion.

There are many advantages to owning gold in the form of jewelry.

• There is no paper trail in the ownership of gold jewelry so it can be tax efficient. If you give your gold jewelry to your heirs there is no tax liability.
  
  
• Gold jewelry is unlikely to be subject to government confiscation. This might seem unlikely in this day and age but its worth remembering that in 1933, President Roosevelt ordered U.S. citizens to surrender all their gold coins, gold bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve. Gold jewelry was exempt.
  
  
• Jewelry that you are wearing is not subject to customs duties or exchange controls. This is useful if you need to get money into or out of the country.
  
  
• Owning gold in the form of jewelry means you can use and enjoy it. Its a cost effective way to flaunt your wealth - you can't wear your share certificates to your friend's party! Even if the gold price does not go up or declines, you have still got something out of it.

You can buy and sell gold on this site for free. If you use paypal to buy the jewelry you can always make a chargeback if you have problems. Paypal seems to favour the buyer in disputes.

How much is 21k gold worth?

To find out how much your gold is worth use our precious metal calculator.

Another way to buy gold cheaply

Barrick Gold, for example, has known reserves of 138.5 million ounces. The cost of extraction is $443 an ounce. So with a gold price of $1097.18 an ounce Barricks reserves are worth $654.18 an ounce giving a total value of $90,603,930,000. With 982.96 million shares outstanding, each share is therefore worth $92. But the share price is only $39.54 making it something of a bargain.

Buying Gold Jewelry

Gold is a safe buy. Unlike with gems, where you really need to be an expert to judge the quality of the stones, buying  gold is straight forward if you go to a reputable shop.

The karatage and gram weight designate how much gold is in a piece, but are not the sole determining price factors. The craftsmanship and level of detail  are also taken into account.

Thai Gold

Generally Thai goldsmiths charge a design fee of around  $7 per baht of gold although it might be higher depending on the construction and design. There is not much scope for bargaining. You might get the price down a dollar for each baht you buy at most - hardly worth the effort! It is generally better value to buy at least 1 baht of gold, as there is a minimum charge for the design fee.

It is astonishingly good value. It is probably no more than 4% above the spot price of gold. When one looks at the exquisite quality of the craftsmanship following intricate, centuries old designs it is sometimes hard to believe. One feels guilty about buying it so cheaply!  If you buy gold jewelry in the West you will pay more like 40% over the spot price.

To buy a chain and pendant you will probably want at least 2 baht for the chain and one baht for the pendant.

There is no hallmarking system in Thailand but the shop will put its stamp on the piece. This is useful if you want to sell it at some future date.

Advantages of Thai gold jewelry

• The markup is low. You can buy 23k or 24k gold in Asia at around 4% over the spot price of gold. Hallmarked jewelry sold in the West has markups as high as 300 - 400% above the cost of the materials used to make it and could never be considered an investment.


• 23k gold is durable. Jewelry is for wearing! If you  have a piece of jewelry that you love you want to wear it day and night. You can wear Thai gold  jewelry twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week  without having to worry. Gold does not tarnish or corrode. That is one of its remarkable characteristics. However if you buy gold with low levels of purity such as 18k or 14k  the alloys mixed with the gold may corrode. Swimming in chlorinated pools, hot tubs or using laundry bleaches for instance can cause the jewelry to disintegrate. Tap water contains small amounts of chlorine and can cause engagement rings to fall apart over time.

Thai gold jewelry on the other hand, because it is 23k and therefore almost pure gold, does not have this problem. 

• Thai gold is comfortable. The alloys mixed with 14k or 18k gold, especially nickel can cause an allergic reaction in some people causing itching and irritation.  Also when you perspire, the fats and fatty acids released can cause corrosion of 14k or 18k gold, especially when exposed to warmth and air. This problem can be worse in seacoast and semitropical areas, where chlorides combine with perspiration to form a corrosive element that discolors skin.

  Because of its purity  you will not have this problem with Thai gold jewelry.

Farang Gold versus Thai Gold

A poster on an internet message board (now defunct) puts it succinctly:

"It's really very simple.

In Asia, particularly Hong Kong, Thailand, India and Pakistan, but generally in Asia gold jewelry is regarded as portable, readily convertible hard assets. This is because it is worked almost pure, between 22K and 24K, actually closer to 24K, and as the labor content (value added by workmanship) is small, gold bracelets and chains etc can be bought for little more than the bullion value, and resold back to the same shop or any other shop, or to a pawnbroker, for a high percentage of its purchase price.

Westerners have been programmed to regard pure gold as:

1. Too brassy
2. Too soft to be useful as jewelry

and to regard Asian high-karat gold jewelry as of inferior workmanship compared to Western gold jewelry.

This is part truth and part self serving lies from the jewelry industry.

The Western jewelry industry wants you to buy 18 K (which is 75% gold 25 % base metals) and then pay a HUGE inflated premium for 'workmanship' (which is really just mostly multi-tiered profit taking). For 14K and less the situation is even worse.

To prove to yourself that this is so, try to recover the bullion value of a 14K gold trinket some time. You will end up owing THEM money.

Whereas Thai goldsmiths are happy to take back the real thing and the loss on your side is rather trivial.

The color issue is bogus as Thai gold can be smelted to be about any color, and still be the same high % pure gold; the Thais can and do make 18K and so on for export. Thai gold sold in Thailand is...the color of gold. It is not attacked by nitric acid, or other mineral acids except a particular mix of nitric and hydrocloric acids called aqua regia (royal acid).

So it comes down to a value judgement. Do you want real, almost pure gold for a tiny premium over the bullion content, or do you want to be FLEECED by people selling you ADULTERATED SHIT for NEEDLESS MARKUPS and justifying their thievery with a tissue of lies about hardness, color and workmanship?

I rarely wear jewelry but when I do it's Thai gold and nothing else.

The best shops are on Yaovarat Rd. in Sampeng (Chinatown) and they NEVER cheat on weight or on purity.

Thai gold is typically around 97-98%, not 999 fine but still not garbage like 14K. It is sold by the baht weight which is just slightly under a half a Troy ounce. Pls be aware that the Troy system used for jewelry is NOT the Avoirdupois system used commonly. There are 14 not 16 Troy ounces to the Troy pound and the Troy pound is not same as the Avoirdupois pound. "

Testing the purity of the gold

Testing the purity of gold is very hard and involves chipping off a small bit from your jewelry. Even this does not prove the purity of the whole piece, only the bit tested. This is why it is so important to buy gold from a reputable supplier.

Most gold shops use a standard fire assay which uses heat to test the purity of the gold. 

The best place however is the Gems Institute of Thailand, which is one of only 7 laboratories in the world recognized by the International Confederation of Jewelry (CIBJO). They can assay the gold using:

1. X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) which has an error rate of 2 or 3 per thousand. This equipement finds the quantity of a sample by Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis


2. Inductivity Couple Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES) which is a chemical assay and has an accuracy of 1 per thousand.

Testing Gold Coins

Getting gold out of the country

At the moment there are no restrictions on getting gold out the US, but there is no guarantee that exchange controls could not be introduced in the future.

Most countries do not recognize gold as a monetary instrument (at least based on its market value), so gold can be moved freely and privately across most borders. In the United States, the law requires that an individual is required to report if s/he is leaving the country with more than $10,000, or foreign equivalent, in monetary instruments. So what is a monetary instrument? Domestic and foreign currency, travelers checks in any form, money orders, negotiable instruments, stock certificates, or any investment securities in bearer form. If you leave (or enter) the United States with more than $10,000 in monetary instruments, you must fill out form FinCen 105, which you can ask for upon arrival or departure. Gold bars and coins are not included on this list. One-ounce American Eagle coins have a face value of $50, therefore theoretically 200 Eagle coins would meet the $10,000 threshold. Of course, it is not illegal to depart the country with more than $10,000-- you simply have to declare the money... so if you are nervous or in doubt about leaving the country with your gold, just ask for the form.

In Canada, the rules are essentially the same. Entering or leaving the country with more than C$10,000 or foreign equivalent in monetary instruments must be declared to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on form E667.

There are certain countries, Taiwan and Uruguay for example, that require you to declare ownership of gold upon entry. Since laws change all the time, make sure you check your departing and arrival country’s customs information before the trip.