Melting down old gold to make new jewelry

A. Hi Jacob. Don't even think about melting it. Even assuming it has no aesthetic or collector value, such that you are concerned only about intrinsic metal value ...

Most jewelers and buyers would probably -- based on the look of the piece, the 12K markings, and a quick acid test -- believe that in fact it is 12K gold. Once you melt it into a blob, only a friend or a fool would believe it to be solid 12K without an expensive assay that you would have to pay for :-)

Luck & Regards,

A. Gold and other fine jewelry that starts off as a cast piece is made from a process called vacuum casting, the hot metal is poured in a molten state into the mold then the pressure in the mold is reduced to about 2.0 atmospheres or so (which if memory serves is not very much). This forces the metal into all the nooks and crannies, giving you a near perfect positive of your mold.

The reason that most jewelers do not do common vacuum casting is that it is prohibitively expensive; whereas the basic smelting equipment ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] is almost 500 bucks, the stuff for the vacuum casting ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] is almost 10,000 USD Hope that explains it.

A. Kelly,
the reason most jewelers won't cast with scrap gold is because you have solder joints in the scrap gold. When the scrap is cast you may get porosity or discolorations in the finished piece. hope this helps.

A. Be aware that recovering the gold from solid gold jewelry is one thing: 10K gold being 10 parts gold out of 24. But recovering gold from gold plated jewelry is something entirely different because the plating is likely to be only millionths of an inch thick. There is probably more gold in one 10K ring than in 500 plated ones.

A. Hi, John.

Try to sell it on eBay or Craigslist if you don't like it. Plated gold is so thin that it is worth almost nothing in intrinsic metal value. Most knowledgable people think if you really know what you are doing, and are already set up for it, and if you're lucky, you might get a fraction more for the gold than you spend in recovering it, but most people are throwing money away when they try to do so.

Regards,

A. Hi Debbie. Try to sell them as jewelry on eBay where their beauty may offer some value. There are "We buy gold" stores on every other street corner these days, but gold plating is usually so thin that you'll find that there is almost no intrinsic metal value and it can cost more to recover it than it is worth -- they probably don't even want them for free. Sorry.

Regards,

A. Hi Mark. I know very little about this, but I think I know two things, and unfortunately they both contradict what you'd like to do, sorry :-(

First, you can't just melt it down because that just forms a big mixed blob of worthless brittleness. Please see thread 12200 where Chris Owen explains this, and what must be done instead.

Second, there isn't a good way for the refiner to know what will be involved or what it will cost him or what the product will be worth until he does what is called an "assay" on the material that you want recovered. So free estimates of cost are unlikely. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Paris. If it is an older piece, really designed for that purpose, then it will be practical to melt down as intended -- and maybe your grandparents actually intended for you to do just that. But when you say you don't know how much "they put into getting it made", it sounds like it's recent and probably just in the style of the old days. My bet is they wanted you to appreciate a piece of the times they lived through.

If it's a gold plated decorative piece designed to emulate that old idea, it has no intrinsic value and you'll just ruin it -- so save it for your own daughter. Any jeweler can test it quickly, or you can look up Archimedes rule to do an initial test yourself because solid gold is much heavier than most plated gold. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Any jeweler should be able to melt it all together.

Assuming the chain was originally marked 10K, by melting it you have changed something of somewhat known value into a blob of unknown value. By melting it, you have made the selling of it more complicated. However, any knowledgeable buyer with a touchstone should be able to easily zero in on the gold value of the blob.

Whether melted or unmelted, a gold buyer will probably give you between 50% and 75% of the actual gold value. I recently talked to a jeweler in a small town that was only paying 50%.

Before attempting to sell it, weigh it on a gram scale and then calculate the approximate actual value of gold in it. Be aware that something marked 10K is rarely, if ever, actually 10K. It is very likely to be 1/2 Karat off, or 9.5K, which is 9.5/24 = .396 = 39.6% gold. At the present spot price of $1318 per troy ounce, gold is worth a little over $42 per gram (1318 divided by 31.1). Your chain, whether melted or melted would be worth about 42 X .396 = $16.60 per gram. So, if you were to sell it for 50% of value, you would get $8.30 per gram. At 75%, you would get $12.45 per gram.

Shop around. You don't have to take the first offer.

A. Hello Lisa, as you mentioned these pieces have different alloys and the jeweler may choose to melt them down in groups or singularly for that matter. The biggest hurdle will be to find a jewelry mfgr and designer to do it. If you do decide to do this weigh each piece and note the kt composition for each. 14 kt gold has about 58% gold weight. Just do the math for other kt pieces. The weight before and after won't match exactly because of stones, etc. So you have melt charges, which can be as much as $650.00 or more depending on the shop doing it. After that, the design job will be the most expensive and obviously dependent on what you want designed. Be prepared and know your weights, because there is a lot of skimming off the top. Good Luck.

A. It's not as simple as just melting the rings and then dipping the charms in the molten metal. That would never, ever work, for several technical reasons.

One way to do it, is to do it chemically. That would be a lot of work and it would quite expensive, assuming you could find someone with enough knowledge to do it. I doubt if any jeweler would be capable of doing it. It would take a good chemist and, even then, many would have problems doing it, since most have no experience working with precious metals.

They would have to first dissolve the rings in acid, separate and convert the dissolved gold to a chemical that could be used in a plating bath, formulate a proper plating bath, and, finally, plate the charms with gold thick enough to withstand wear. Everything on this list requires expertise.

Another way I thought of is to first have the rings refined to extract the pure gold. Then, the gold could be sputtered onto the charms. This method would be simpler, but it would require special equipment and expertise and would also be quite expensive.

I realize that this is purely a sentimental thing. You want the exact same gold that is in the rings to be used on the charms. Once you give those rings to a person contracted to do this work, what would prevent him from simplifying all this by substituting gold, already in the form needed, from another source. Gold is gold is gold. You would never know the difference. I bring this up because I've seen similar things happen, several times.

Thanks Chris. People see chocolate covered strawberries and soft ice cream, candied apples, and so on, and envision a similar thing but as you say, it won't work for gold. I wonder if the rings are malleable enough to be hammered into some sort of charms though?

Regards,

A. Hi Christie, yes it can be done. The alloys may vary but as you say, you don't care what it looks like. There has to be enough surface area on the rings to make the hammered keychain. You will have to find a Goldsmith or jewelry maker that's willing to do it for you.

A. Hi John
Contact a dental technician. Gold teeth are less common these days but it is a well established process and they will have all the kit needed.

A. Hi Lynn. It is not possible to 'pour' gold over base metal jewelry, but it probably is possible to get it electroplated with gold. But what color is it? If it is brass, the contrast won't be stark as it starts to wear. If it is silver colored, it will look poor more quickly.

Have your friend purchase the bracelet in Ghana, but have it electroplated locally -- then you'll know what you have and you'll have recourse and not have to worry about scams.

Regards,

A. Hi Isias. I don't think it's a common situation for a jeweler to melt down a bar of gold and make a chain from it for you. So when you ask whether it's "worth it", I don't think people can give you a standard answer. I think your only choice is to ask a few jewelers what it will cost and decide based on their answers :-(

Regards,

A. Hi Sam. Lots of people think gold is a great investment; it's certainly not a poor one as long as you're sure those nuggets are as advertised and you're buying them at a fair price. But I'm not seeing the point of melting them down -- it's not like gold consumes a lot of space.

Regards,

A. If the nuggets you have are marked and certified 20K, that's a good thing. They'll be easy to sell.

If you melt them into one lump, it will not be certified, and it will difficult or impossible to sell until you pay for an assay and certification.

A. Yes, it's worth something because there's some gold. Try one of the "We buy gold" places.

A. Hi.
Jeffrey is right if it was real gold / fine gold / karat gold. But if it was just gold plated, you can hope for some silver value but probably no gold value :-(
Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi Konrad! People are encouraged to help you if they can, but I think jewelry making is more about acquired technique than book knowledge. And for that reason, I think 18 kt gold is a very poor candidate for anyone's first practice. I'd suggest that you get a little copper and/or silver and try your hand at making some pieces from that before risking $2000+ worth of gold on your first try. Best of luck.

Regards,