I see gold dust & placer & crystalline nuggets selling for 2 to 4 times melt or more. Is this the going rate? Has most of the gold been turned into bars, coins & jewelry, so that the natural form is rare?
I personally don't know the going rate because I've never bought raw gold. A friend of mine had some in the past but the dude is sooo dang tight, he wants to sell at full retail. Suffice it to say, he's not a good friend.
I could see the nuggets selling at a premium, but the dust? If anything dust should be less then spot certainly not a 2-4x premium... although they get a premium for fractional gold eagles etc... maybe an ounce of gold dust is worth $6,000... just don't sneeze around it
I have seen these items also. While interesting, I never considered buying any. There are even some said to come from the S.S. Central America that may have historical value. But there are other places I'd rather put the money.
The only raw gold I'd consider worth more than spot would be specimen gold. I've seen pieces with less than an oz go for tens of thousands of dollars because of the host it was attached to, the shape, where it was found, and so on. In those cases, the gold isn't always what is worth the money. Guy
i think that nuggets are better than bars/rounds of gold, i think everything in its raw form is more beautiful than molded melted manufactured hunks of metal.. don't get me wrong, i like all bullion bars and rounds, but as i said, natural is better and i'd pay A LOT more for nice gold nuggets than just an ounce round of gold (if i had the extra money it costs for nuggets vs rounds) :thumb:
Nuggets have a certain raw appeal, I think. One of the tricky parts is knowing how much of a nugget is actual gold versus inclusions. And if you're buying to speculate/invest in precious metals then it's far easier to buy a known quantity like an eagle or other coin. But I like nuggets and would buy if the right opportunity presented itself. There was an article not long back about a huge nugget found in Australia. They said it would be worth X if melted down, but was expected to return almost double that when sold in raw form due to the size (and therefore rarity) of the specimen.
Here's a link to that gold nugget found in Australia: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/gold-nugget-australia-ballarat-found_n_2496663.html Pretty cool, and it's amazing how dense gold is. I would have never guessed that nugget weighed almost 12 pounds. Anyways, they are saying it's worth maybe $500,000 instead of $300,000. Either way, it's a pretty good return on the $6000 metal detector he was using.
Yes, Nuggets sell for more than Spot/weight price. If you are just investing in the physical metal, don't buy nuggets. I have some nuggets I paid many times spot for.(Fortunately for me I bought them when Gold was $400/ounce) There is a certain beauty of raw Gold nuggets. It's akin to coin collecting. I have friends that think I'm crazy paying many times face value for an old beat up 1889 CC Dollar. Collect what you like.
