When we talk about gold weight we usually quote spot prices in “Troy Ounces”. Since an ounce of gold is quite a lot, we often need to talk in smaller units. This is where “grams” and “pennyweights” come in. Pennyweights use this symbol: dwt. Grams use this symbol: g. Now when it comes to selling your gold knowing the difference between the two is very important. The accepted unit around my area is grams. Some shady gold dealers, especially at gold buying parties, use the difference to confuse sellers. So here is the difference. A pennyweight is bigger than a gram. There are more grams in an ounce than pennyweights. If someone were to offer you $10 per gram or $10 per pennyweight, which would you take? Let’s do some quick math to illustrate. There are 31.1 grams in an ounce. There are 20 grams in an ounce. So 31.1 times $10 equals $310.10 an ounce. Now for pennyweights 20 times $10 equals $200 an ounce. Would you rather sell your gold for $310 an ounce or for $200 an ounce? Ask your buyer to quote in GRAMS when you are selling broken gold or gold jewelry. this way you can compare different sellers.

I am not a fan of GOLD PARTIES. I have nothing against people selling or buying GOLD. In the state I live in, we have laws that govern the buying of gold by merchants. These laws require the filling out of buy reports and reporting to the local police as well as holding on to the gold for a set amount of time. Every state and country is different. These laws help prevent theft as well as keep terrorist from moving unmonitored assets around the world. Gold Parties flaunt these laws. I have attended a few to see what was going on there and have found that in every case they were paying less money for gold than I pay at my shop. They were also deceiving about the price they were paying. When asked they usually just answered “we are paying so much an ounce”. Nobody knew what that really meant to them, so they just said great and handed over there gold. A word of warning right here. A pennyweight is bigger than a gram. There are less pennyweights in an ounce. See my post about pennyweights vs grams.

The short answer as of this writing……HECK YEA!! Gold has been trading at record high prices! Looking back about 10 years, gold was trading at about $300.00 US per ounce. It did not fluctuate to much for about 8 years, hitting around $400.00 in 2004. Since then it has hit as high as $1000 per ounce in
2008. I am not an expert at forcasting metal prices, so I can’t predict wether it will go up or down. It is just my opinion that if gold is over $600 an ounce, I’m getting my money while I can. You need to decide for yourself or consult a local expert.