Gold

[glass4est]

Hey dose the pice of gold hurting anyone else? Not that alot is needed but shit it is $650 an oz.(market). Not to mention the tax of the seller. I know you can get wire and flakes and coins and bullion. I use coins or bullion, preferably pandas and sussies. Is it any cheeper to get it in wire or stick with finding beat up but .999 fine coins or bullion? Or who has the stock pile. HA HA HA. I feel like a 49er. just might get into the creek out back and start panning. Wish I would of bught up gold 10 years ago. SNAP!!

[LFC]

Bullion is the cheapest way to go, when you start to get into wire and such the manufacture charges a manufacturing cost on top of the spot cost, your best bet is to find a coin shop and just buy 50 canadian maple leaves, these are one oz 999.99% pure gold coins, most coin stores will barely charge over spot for these, I started using the maple leaves as they are the only gold coin that is pure gold, all the other coins have a small amount of either nickel or copper that gives the metal better durability, this small percent does not effect fumming but I originally started buying these coins when I got into metal casting so thats what I am used to using. This has just been my experiance in getting the best price, of course I remember when I had the chance to buy gold when it was 350 an oz, kick my self in the ass everday about that one!!!

[zgeniez]

http://stores.ebay.com/ErinsIngots

1 gram ingots. Great lady to deal with. I told her what I was doing with it and she was thrilled...had no idea some of her buyers were using it the way we do. ~Zac~

[LFC]

hey no offence but,, you have to watch people selling gold on ebay, some of those auctions are going for well over spot value, 21 dollars is about the spot value for gold and some of those auctions are going for well over that, not to mention that you have to pay for shipping on top of that, plus an additional 2.50 in shipping for each additional bar, If you watch them I am sure you could get a good deal, but I have found that in the long run, if you establish a relationship with coin dealer you will be happier in the long run, most coin dealers can get these little bars and if you tell them what you are going to be doing with them they tend to not charge you for the "collectable" value of the bar.

[Greymatter Glass]

spot prices are by the ounce... gold is well over $600. If you're getting gold for $21 an ounce buy 50 tons of it.

Gold is usually sold by the ounce or penny weight (dwt) a dwt is 1/20th of an ounce.

Right now gold is is around $620 per Oz. that makes a dwt around $35. A gram would be somewhat more exspensive....around $40.

What I _WOULD_ be careful about on ebay is people who just don't know what they're doing. a gram is more than a dwt, but some people don't even know the differnce, so they get a dwt of gold then sell it on ebay as a gram.

It's not a huge deal, but at these prices that little fraction can add up.

If anyone needs a decent price on gold I can get some 24k wire from Rip Grande next time I am there and I'd be happy to sell it for cost + shipping.

Oh, and someone asked about the cheapest way to buy gold..... That would be what's known as "B scrap" but you'll never get any 24k out of that. The next cheapest way to buy gold is casting grain from someone like Rio Grande. This is just "as processed" metal from a refinery and made up of little odd sized grains. you get about 6-10 per dwt. This is what bullion makers would melt into bullion.... so you can save a step....when I buy my gold in this form I smash an individual grain with a hammer and break it into 3rds or so....

Usually I buy wire tho, so I can just cut a little piece off. 6" of 30ga 24k wire has lasted me years. Got it when gold was like $400/oz and people were freaking out about that :)

-Doug

[HumanLathe]

There is a fine metal foundry right by my house and they make the coins there!! It's really cool they give free tours and they'll just let you watch from the window as you are buying your shit. They sell the cheapest .999 gold I have found and its the little balls of slag/grain from making the coins,0 super pure!! not sure of the price but it is still not cheap. I don't like using wire it tends to have impurities in it .....well at least the stuff I have tried. I go with either maple leaves or any other .999 gold coin besides the slag/grain. I like the slag/grain because I don't have to buy a fuck load and the shit lasts me for ever!

[glass4est]

yea stock market price is $644 today. I am getting in with a local coin dealer who said he could help me out. I cant imagine how much it will be in 5 to 10 more years. $25 a gm is good though. You can find good gold on ebay but the price of the sussies and pandas get high. A gram = 15.456 grains, watch for ebays price on grained gold. Not good deal. I do like Asian and swiss Gold. Canadian gold is good too. Anyone know about this indonesian gold? It dosen't look to shinny. Hey matt sounds like you need to invest in the kids next door.

[HumanLathe]

Yeah no shit!! but they got there shit dialed they don't need me their foundry is HUGE!!

[cheng076]

Ahhhh! the good ole days when it was fixed at $35.00 an ounce. Come on.... you guys remember those days??

Wish I could find that pic I had of a buddy with a restruant size mayo jar 3/4 full of nuggets we pulled out of our gold claim on the Yuba river back in the '70's in one month.

Coin dealer here in Seattle/Tacoma area sold me a 1 gram 'Tola' bar for $21.00 and tax.

Gold prices have been relatively stable in the $600 range for quite some time
Don't forgetthe open house at Momka's on the 13th.

PJ

[Greymatter Glass]

What's the name of the refinery? lucky bastard :P If I lived next door to a gold refinery I would look into investing. One of the factors in the mark up from spot price of gold is the shipping cost. imagine shipping blocks of lead, now make those blocks heavier... there ya go. the cost is a combination of the costs of: Fuel, cyanide, ore, labor, processing (drawing into wire, casting into coin or ingot, etc), and ultimately the price Asia is willing to pay for gold for use in semiconductors and jewelry.

As for wire, if it is sold as 24k it should be the exact same metal found in coins, grain, anything else.

24K wire can be pretty hard to find tho, usually it is 22k wire alloyed with copper and silver. They do this because PURE gold is so soft and ductile it tends to break very easy when being drawn into wire.

By law anytyhing sold as 24k has to be at least 999 parts per thousand (.999) pure gold or better....these days most refiners output is more like 999999 parts per million gold. The impureties are usually cyanide compounds and trace silver, copper, lead, mercury, and nickel. the amounts are so small that they're not really an issue... it's like jumping in a swimming pool with one drop of urine in it :P

Also, stay away from 24k de-ox grain. It has some boric acid in the grain that when melted burns out and doesn't affect the karat value, but when it's in grain form is about 23K gold and when it gets in the flame will make for some problems. Mostly splotchy burned out gold. Asme goes for de-ox silver grain (where I learned about this problem the first time)

have fun golding... and if you are in the west, panning for gold is a viable way to get some really cool nuggets with strange impurities that can do some really cool, or some not so cool, stuff on glass depending on the river it comes from. A proper gold pan is like $10 on ebay, and in an afternoon sitting at a good stream deep in the mountains near the source you can probably get a gram or 2 od flakes. I went up to Golden, NM once and panned on an old guys claim for an hour and got a small vial of gold flakes, probably about 1/10th of a dwt, but still.... free gold! also, if you're not on public lands make sure you ask whoever holds the claim, because claim jumping is still a _VERY_ serious offence in the western US, and in many states, California included, a valid excuse to shoot someone.

gotta love old laws :)

Have fun.

-Doug

[HumanLathe]

Ahhhh! the good ole days when it was fixed at $35.00 an ounce. Come on.... you guys remember those days??

Wish I could find that pic I had of a buddy with a restruant size mayo jar 3/4 full of nuggets we pulled out of our gold claim on the Yuba river back in the '70's in one month.

Coin dealer here in Seattle/Tacoma area sold me a 1 gram 'Tola' bar for $21.00 and tax.

Gold prices have been relatively stable in the $600 range for quite some time
Don't forgetthe open house at Momka's on the 13th.

PJ

I love the yuba my mom lives off Purdon road on the ridge , you know off Tylerfoot. Nevada City Grass Valley area is booming these days. My mom has ten acres out there. The Yuba is the most incredible river I have ever seen if you haven’t seen it go there it is absolutely amazing! The panning sucks there now, it did 10 years ago when I was doing it.
back in the day they got the Chinese to come over and mine gold. Up the river from where we swim is a place called Chinese Damn it is broken through the middle now with a rush of water going through the middle , in the middle there is a rope with a knee board of some kind... well there used to be who knows now.

[HumanLathe]

BTW panning for gold sucks balls it is wet and you don't find shit anymore LOL!!

[Greymatter Glass]

yeah...it's not something you can make a living off anymore really... but for hobbiests it's a fun way to stay cool in the heat... find a shady spot on a river, dredge up some good earth from the deeper areas, and pan away for a few hours.

not ALL rivers mind you, just ones known for having gold in them..... I bet the silt up stream from the dam has some gold left in it. If you got one of those gas powered sluce dredgers you could probably at least pay it off in a year or 2 :P

-Doug

[LFC]

The 21 dollar spot price I was talking about was per gram, not oz, they were selling gold for upward of 27 dollars plus per gram,plus shipping, that was why I said you kind of had to be carefull.

[HumanLathe]

yeah...it's not something you can make a living off anymore really... but for hobbiests it's a fun way to stay cool in the heat... find a shady spot on a river, dredge up some good earth from the deeper areas, and pan away for a few hours.

not ALL rivers mind you, just ones known for having gold in them..... I bet the silt up stream from the dam has some gold left in it. If you got one of those gas powered sluce dredgers you could probably at least pay it off in a year or 2 :P

-Doug

The main hwy going out to my moms house is called Hwy 49 also host to the famous early 90's Forty Niner Fire which burned like a crazy mutha, the damage still visible big time today. There are a few claims left on the whole entire river that give a little gold. It's funny a friend of mine when I was in 8th grade his dad had a claim up the hill from my mom's house and they hit something like a $3,000,000 pocket, him and his family are the only ones who worked on pulling it out so it took for ever!! But I remember his dad was assistant coach for our flag-football game and we drove to the games in his brand new Hummer{ the old go anywhere ones}

[cheng076]

Yeah, that's the same area. The claim was a 3 mile hike from the end of the road along a 'goat trail' carved into a steep scree fall off the mountian. Not fun! We had a 16' x 16' oil drum float anchored in the river and a suction dredge powered by a VW engine. The suction was 10" in diameter.... it would pick up rocks the size of bowling balls and throw'em out the other end for 100 feet. Our 'camp' was a large pool formed from past dredging and at one side there was two enormous boulders that formed a 'V'. There was a creek comming down between them. We built a platform over the creek for sleeping and piped water from above into a kitchen area with a sinkso we had running water 24/7. There was this great long swinging rope that allowed you to swing out over the water from the platform and drop into the water. Directly across the river was an old ball crusher mill and mine that was not in operation but had a caretaker who lived on site. He used to let us use the road, that's how we got all that stuff in there. Those were good times.
I imagine the whole area is now covered with houses and such... too bad as it was some nice country.
PJ

[HumanLathe]

They did hydraulic mining every where too, they just washed the mountains away with giant high pressure hoses it really is an amazing area!! It was one of the largest gold mining towns in California.

MOUNTIAN GETTING WASHED AWAY (http://cprr.org/Museum/Hydraulic_Mining/)