Howdy, I am curious as to how many on this forum smelt their fine placer gold at home?
What are the benefits of doing this, does it make it easier to sell ? Or is it just a cool hobby thing?
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Personally I feel it’s harder to sell. I guess people can’t be sure of purity, but seem more inclined to buy the raw mined stuff as it’s a bit more of a known purity? Or maybe people just like the raw gold more.
No problems selling it at 22k price. There is no debating weights at the receivers end if being posted, alot easier to weigh and re weigh with no spillage!
Both valid points, I would love to be getting enough fine gold to justify the set up costs.
Interesting. I was getting the impression some people found the smelted product harder to sell. Out of curiosity, do you get a good price? Any raw gold I see for sale on Trade Me always seems to go for quite a bit over spot which always surprises me, even fine gold.
I will get 22k spot price. My buyers have got to know me so guess that helps. I have sold some loose Au on TM but it all pans out after fees and time etc and I always worry about their end saying it did not weigh up, also doesn’t have to be packaged as well as if I was sending a vial. For nicer bits I would recommend selling separately as we know can fetch higher bids. But for ease of purchase and repeated customer I like to smelt the fine and dirty Au and they get a wee profit immediately too for their investment.
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That makes sense really. You can see what you are buying with raw gold, smelted could be *tampered with and maybe thats a concern for buyers purchasing homemade ingots. Interesting.
Personally l would never buy home smeltered gold as l once knew a fellow who ‘doctored it’ but would definitely buy raw alluvial gold…if the price was right!
If l ever had any gold and was prepared to sell it then l would sell it as natural nuggets. Some of the prices they fetch on Trademe sometimes make my mind boggle.
Definitely would sell on Trademe. I dont know what the success fee is…l should know as l recently sold three full sized pool tables.
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