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FOR SALE: Gold chains and bangles of various shapes and sizes


  
Buying Gold Jewelry

You can buy and sell gold on this site for free. Please fill in the form below.

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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.

Poll

You are buying a 14k gold ring. The value of the gold in the ring is $1000. How much would you pay for the ring?

$

The most critical thing to look for in buying gold jewelry apart  from the style, is the purity of the gold. The higher the gold content, the more valuable it is.  Pure gold is considered too soft for jewelry and is therefore mixed with other metals. The percentages used in the alloy is dependent on the metal and the way in which it binds with gold. The maximum tensile strength of copper and gold is achieved with 75% gold and 25% copper - 18k gold. With titanium the maximum tensile strength is achieved with 99% gold and 1% titanium. The length of time and the heat at which the metals are cooked are also significant. For example a 99.3% gold and .7% titanium mixture heated at 500° C for 60 minutes would result in a hardness of 229 HV (18k gold of 75% gold has a hardness of 170 HV). With a different temperature or time the hardness could be much less.

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

The demand among Asian consumers for gold with a high fineness, which can be easily transferred into money, but with improved mechanical properties such as resistance to wear, distortion and breakage is leading Thai goldsmiths to the use of titanium. Prima Gold and Gold Master for example both use a titanium and gold alloy. However this represents a very small section of the market in Thailand.

The level of fineness will depend on the country. The following table is the result of a survey by the Gold Institute of Thailand:
karat % gold Country Color
24k 100% Switzerland gold
23k 96.5% Thailand dark yellow
22k 91.7% India yellow
21K 84.5% Middle East yellow
18K 75% Italy, France, Japan yellow, white
14K 58.3% America, UK yellow, white
10K 41.6% America yellow
9K 37.5% UK green yellow
8K 33.3% Germany pale yellow

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. 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.

Buying jewelry for your girlfriend

A present that can be easily converted into cash such as jewelry is probably not the best present to buy your date as there is always the danger that she could be a 'gold-digger' who is just stringing you along. A worthless but expensive present such as a dinner for two in a plush restaurant is probably a better bet. If you are determined to buy your lady jewelry you should probably go for a piece from a company like Tiffany, for example, which is expensive enough to impress her but which has a poor resale value.

Using a Credit Card

You can use a Credit card for gold purchase at most shops on Yaowarat Road although .there is usually a surcharge of 2-5%, depending on the shop and the credit card. Amex is more expensive than Visa or Mastercard. In addition to the shop adding a surcharge, your credit card company will most likely charge you a fee for "foreign currency conversion". Debit cards also have a similar charge structure, although it is hard to see how the companies justify this...

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

When buying gold coins you might want to use the Fisch Fake Coin Identification Gauge. This is a simple device that checks the weight and size of a gold coin. By checking both these dimensions all common metal counterfeits will be detected. This is because gold has a greater density than the commmon metals such as lead, copper, brass, steel. The only metals with a density greater than gold are the platinum group metals and tungsten. The price of platinum rules it out while tungsten is a very hard brittle which would be very difficult to work into a passable fake. There are Fisch for all the major gold bullion coins.

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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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, Presedent Roosevelt ordered U.S. citizens to surrender all their gold coins, gold bullion and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve. Gold jewelry was exempt.

  • There is no paper trail in the ownership of gold jewelry. If you give your gold jewelry to your heirs there is no tax liability.

  • 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. "

Buying Gold Buddhas

The best place to buy statues of Buddha, Ganash, Rama or other religious paraphanelia is probably Sao Ching Cha (เศวตชิงช้า) in Bangkok.