Selling Gold

I am writing this because, I am a bit cheesed off.
I have been gold detecting for a long time, and although the big one has not turned up yet, I will keep on digging and every nugget is a new story.
I sell my gold on Ebay, because their are too many sharks out there who will offer you the least amount possible for it, and this includes the people who sell metal detectors and take gold as payment.
I will not be sold short. Gold is valuable and probably the most sellable item that will continually increase in value.
Today I had a shark approach me on ebay and offered me $120.00 for gold I had listed for near on $300.00, after replying to his message and basically telling him to POQ, he approached me three times with three more offers , the highest being $200.
My reply to him was as follows
If you want the gold, bid for it, if you are the successful bidder for the seven small nuggets that are there, I will give you postal credits ony. I do not care if the nuggets do not sell. In three years, gold will be $3000.00 per ounce, if you want it cheap go out and dig it yourself. Digging for gold can be hard work, if you don't believe me , try it.

You are Dead right billysmo, Gold detecting can be hard work and we deserve every cent we get for it once we've found it. But there are also plenty of people out there that want it as cheap as they can get it without doing the hard yards! I recently sold some gold on ebay but had to relist it all a 2nd time before getting a good price because of Time wasters and whingers sending me ridiculous messages.

hey Billsymo, your spot on, gold is worth the every sent when your the one who has to go out for hrs on end day after day and dig the yellow up in rain or stinking hot weather, getting bitten by the little blood suckers and those bloody flys. people think it must be easy for us to go out and find it and think we will sell it for next to nothing.... like hell. i have been thinking about selling my gold on ebay but you still have to pay ebay for selling your items... so in one way if you can find a buyer that wont rip you like some gold shops that take a 15 to 25% cut that would be great. i have found a buyer he takes a 10% cut but with the bigger gold like your ounce bits 5%... the way i look at it your going to loose money both ways or you find a buy that pays what you reckon it's worth.
cheers
stoppsy

While I do agree some people make rediculous offers, it's a two way street.

A buyer is entitled to offer the highest price he is willing to pay, which yes may be well below your asking price. All you have to do is say yes or no.
Likewise you as a seller are entitled to ask for the highest price you are willing to part with it for, which often can be way above what it is actually worth.

Making an offer below your asking price does not make a person a shark, he may be just stating the price he is willing to pay or what it is worth to him. No harm in asking.

In another post you stated you sold a .3gr for $93.00 which in MHO is a rediculous price to pay for a tiny nugget when gold sits at $45 a gr.

Some people would label you as the shark

stoppsy wrote:hey Billsymo, your spot on, gold is worth the every sent when your the one who has to go out for hrs on end day after day and dig the yellow up in rain or stinking hot weather, getting bitten by the little blood suckers and those bloody flys. people think it must be easy for us to go out and find it and think we will sell it for next to nothing.... like hell. i have been thinking about selling my gold on ebay but you still have to pay ebay for selling your items... so in one way if you can find a buyer that wont rip you like some gold shops that take a 15 to 25% cut that would be great. i have found a buyer he takes a 10% cut but with the bigger gold like your ounce bits 5%... the way i look at it your going to loose money both ways or you find a buy that pays what you reckon it's worth.
cheers
stoppsy

geez stoppsy...it sounds like you are being forced against your will and you hate doing it!
It;s supposed to be an enjoyable hobby mate!

Have to agree with you Tuna, spent the morning collecting lead with the detector and the arvo collecting lead with the pan he he..

Hot muggy and flies ! A bad day prospecting is always better than a good day of fencing lol

cheers stevo

hey madtuna, it's just me today i think, things are just not going that easy for us at the moment with the money side off things,... and just that some people do think it can be easy going. i'v had people ask what i do now i just tell them i'm a gold prospecter and a stay at home dad and they look at you funny thinking that your one off these people who get centrelink and do what you wont. i tell them i don't get no money from centerlink and show them some off the gold that i have found and tell then how i go getting it then they might change there mind about it. i'll never give up detecting i love it to much.
cheers
stoppsy

stoppsy wrote:hey [url=https://golddetecting.forumotion.net//profile.forum?mode=viewprofile&u=1528][b][color=#062f51] i have found a buyer he takes a 10% cut but with the bigger gold like your ounce bits 5%... the way i look at it your going to loose money both ways or you find a buy that pays what you reckon it's worth.
cheers
stoppsy

Thats good stoppsy if you have a buyer that will pay you SPOT PRICE minus 10% for clean nuggets, because if the nuggets are only say 92% to 95% gold and the remainder is silver and copper etc he is not going to make much money for himself unless he hangs onto them and waits for the gold price to keep going up.

Some gold nuggets will assay at about 98% but mostly its between 90% to 95% and you will find it hard to tell the difference just by looking at them.

cheers dave

Last time dealt with Coiltek in Maryborough, it was spot price less 10%. for good clean gold.
However, if you have a nice interesting shaped nugget it should fetch above gold value.
cheers, Osama.

Anybody dealt with this fellow? posted a few days ago

https://golddetecting.forumotion.net/selling-gold-gold-buyers-f31/we-buy-gold-at-spot-t2781.htm

We are Buying Gold Nuggets, Bars, Dust and Scrap. I work directly with a small Private refiner in Sydney. We will buy All Gold at Spot Price or more. We are in need of Gold and would pay on the spot - No gold will EVER be turned down. You can bring it direct to the Refinery or Send it under invoice for free.

We have started to build an Scrap Gold buying Website to help get the refiner more gold because our sources are dry. This is why we are interested in buying from the public. You are welcome to call me or the refiner direct and get a quote.

We can buy up to 50kg per week. We will take even small scrap lots if you wish to sell it directly to a refiner. Any quantity welcome.

We can organize free shipping for you if you want to send from anywhere in the world to the refinery.
For more details contact me, Paul Davis of AGTN

I do not know if I can place up my email on this system, but here it is. paul.davis@agtn.net (Quote: Selling Gold Australia).
skype: paul.davis.agtn2

PaulDavis

Gday


Buyers will often try their luck and offer you a lot less than what your gold is really worth, the reason this happens is there are some people that will sell to them below its value just to get rid of it, either desperate for the cash or perhaps on a pension and worried about getting in trouble for it and just wanting to sell it quick.

However I think you are better off holding out and you should expect to get a reasonable and fair price for your gold, the truth is you should be getting what it is worth because finding it requires effort and although you dig it from the ground for free it costs you to get out there, and costs your for your gear and it costs you for your fuel, and it is getting harder to find not easier to find.

Good nuggets are getting rarer and dont grow back so they should be worth more than scrap or ugly stuff, the people who are doing the buying are not doing it for fun they are doing it for the money, at the end of the day the least they pay you for it the greater the profit they make when they sell it, they are just in a better financial position than you when they are able to buy gold and sit on it and wait for the prices to go up then re sell it.

Its rare that the guy who does all the work will get all the benefits of his efforts, this is the case for just about every commodity there is, its always someone up the line who will make the most profit and put in the least effort, you would find that if nugget sellers held out on there prices then they would start to get what there gold is really worth, but when there are people who are willing to give it away there will always be people who are willing to take it off them, thats the reason that they try it on you in the first place.

The scrap gold buyers are proving this every day, buying jewellery from unwary and uneducated people who dont really know what their stuff is worth, I wonder how many family heirlooms and valuable pieces are sold to these merchants for far less than what they are really worth, quite a few I would imagine, not to mention the stolen and burgled pieces that are surrendered for the quick cash by druggies and the like.

You have every right to expect a fair and decent price for the effort you put in to get your gold.

cheers

stayyerAU

If fine gold is sitting around $45 per gm , nuggets should fetch 20 to 30% above it minimum, crystaline gold usually commands a 100% return with some pieces even doubling that.
Don't sell your gold cheaply and remember the bulk of the gold mined each year worldwide is fine and from crushed rock so nuggets represent something rare and unique and should be sold as such.
As for me selling the nuggets I find , that process would be as painful as extracting teeth , and in any case probably cost me $100 per gm to find.
Mark

Selling gold also comes down to how urgently you need the dollars, I have found ebay and refiners on par when it comes to actual cash in hand. Ebay's/paypal fees are usually about 10% so it is a break even which ever way you go.

What I have found is, setting up a small table at the markets and selling gold, usually about $5 per gram above spot for clean polished nuggets from about .05 to 3 grams, also selling a few sets of digital scales about 150% markup so long as you buy them cheap in the first place like $10 to $20 a set. This has put very good dollars in my pockets, the stall cost me $10 for the day, and I run my coin detector over the carp park and get about twice that back in about an hour.

I have bought tyres from Bob Jane, Meat from the local Butcher, Fuel, drinking supplies, all with gold. Ya know, like back on the gold fields like 150 years back. You can still do it today.

I do pendants and advertise them in shop windows, using local nuggets, this works a treat at Christmas. Also done charm bracelets, several for new born baby girls, parents think its an excellent investment.

Just think outside the square and for where you might get a sale. Last year I was on the bones of my Rse and the wife's birthday was 2 weeks away, I sold about 25grams and let her play whoopie in the shops, I might have got a fair bit less than gold price as I needed the money, but I got more value from the missus than any amount I could have got for the nuggets.

Gold at the moment is at $44.54 per gram Aus. so if I was selling on E-bay right now, I would be asking $45.00per gm. Remember that gold nuggets are scarcer than dimonds, but dimond prices are monitored by a world body that controlls the price and flow of dimaond around the world, to keep the price up, but not gold. Gold prices go up and down from country to country depending on their economy and their demand for gold at the time. America just printed more paper money to help their economy, but if they do not re-value there assets, and that is including their gold bullon, then the money will not be worth the paper that it is printed on, so gold will go up in price. So what you ask for your gold today the gold WILL be worth more tomorrow or in the near future to the buyer. The way the World ecomomy is going and the demand for gold, the gold prices can only go one way and that is "UP", this is why you are now seeing all these gold buyers popping up in shopping centres ect, they know gold well go up. So hang in there and get your real gold price for your hard earned gold and don't give in to anyone that is not willing to give you the price that you are asking for or at least very close to it. No less the 5% of Gold price on the day as it will be worth more in the near future to the buyer.

Wombat

Osama Bin Looking wrote:Last time dealt with Coiltek in Maryborough, it was spot price less 10%.

hi
i`ve not sold gold yet. do the likes of coiltek pay cash money over the counter , cheque or how?
cheers
dave

phoenix wrote:

Osama Bin Looking wrote:Last time dealt with Coiltek in Maryborough, it was spot price less 10%.

hi
i`ve not sold gold yet. do the likes of coiltek pay cash money over the counter , cheque or how?
cheers
dave

Hi Dave, they would have paid me cash but did not have enough on hand, so gave me a cheque made out to cash, so no problem there.
So normally they pay cash. But some of the other posts are right about hanging on for a better price if you got nice looking nuggets. However, thats easier said than done, as you may have a long wait for the right buyer.
All depends how quickly you need the money, but only sell what you have to.
Just seen an advert. in Nov. issue of Gold, Gem & treasure, where they are giving a 6 pack of beer (V.B. of course !) with every oz. sold. So they get you drunk, and get your gold cheap !!!!

G'day phoenix

They will also exchange gold for goods like coils or a new detector if you have enough. As will most other detector shops.

If your exchanging gold for goods then just make sure your getting a good price per gram for your gold and its not totally in favour of the shop

Alf said "I have bought tyres from Bob Jane, Meat from the local Butcher, Fuel, drinking supplies, all with gold. Ya know, like back on the gold fields like 150 years back. You can still do it today." This is also a good idea but I think you would need to have a good understanding with the local shop keepers for this, as everyone recognises the usual money notes that we use but may be a bit supprised if you just plop a bit of gold on the counter in a shop unannounced.

Also in the "old days" you could exchange gold for cash money at the bank, don't know what they would think now if you went in and said here is a couple of ounces of nuggets, can I have 2 & half grand please

cheers dave

I sold some nuggets on Ebay a few months ago (before gold had reached the high price that it currently sits at) and one chap bidding bought one of my nuggets @ a price of $76 per gram. This was way above average expectations. He messaged me before the auction had ended and I suggested that he stop bidding. He was happy to win the nugget though and it had a particularly appealing shape that lent itself well to jewelery... and I think that's what he wanted to do with it. So we were both happy with the results. But that was an unusually high price for a nugget that was just under ten grams.

As for buying and selling gold, it's a buyer's market right now so as a seller you can only decide whether or not you want to sell your gold. We're still in a time of economic downturn. If you need the cash or want to pay for some of your expenses, then sell it. But if you don't, then hang onto it. It most likely will gain more value as time passes by. But it may not. There's an absolute glut of subgram gold on eBay at the moment. Some from sluicing. Some of it is even fake. People on eBay regularly pay above the spot price there which is why so many continue to sell their gold on Ebay. But if anyone buys it, they want to be SURE they're making a profit. They DON'T want to buy gold if it's not in their interest to do so. This means, they don't want the seller to be the one making the only profit. The same goes for store that buy gold nuggets - there's no way they'll buy it unless they can profit from it or they might as well not be in business at all. Many places buy at 15-20% less than spot price to ensure they'll have room to benefit from it if they onsell the gold themselves. Many of us wouldn't bother because Ebay might give us a better profit margin with so many bidders. The trick to selling gold on Ebay is to list it at the minimum of what you think someone else would buy it for, NOT WHAT YOU think it's worth. Allow the bidders to push it up but remember that listing it at an appealing price is important to attract bidders in the first place. Too many people list their gold at above spot price and the only people who tend to bid at $55 per gram or higher will be the people who want it for their collection, not because they expect to have made an investment. The biggest lie out there is from the sellers who claim on their listing that tiny particles of gold they panned are as good as a "bullion" investment. It's not. Another thing I'm weary of seeing is listings where the seller claims his gold is the purest in the world, let alone Australia. Gold in Australia is indeed some of the purest in the world... but it ranges from 60% pure (from a few spots in WA where there's a high copper content) to very high values of just over 97%. There's always some silver or copper in the mixture so why people claim their gold is 100% pure or 24kt is a mystery sometimes.

Larger nuggets over an ounce are undoubtedly rare enough that they'll continue to draw value in the decades to come but those cute little subgram nuggets aren't interesting to the investor unless they're buying it below spot price by the half kilo. There's a saying in the industry that "A Good gold assayer is the one who only rips you off a little bit". This is because Gold Buyers and Assayers HAVE to make a cut for themselves above the value of the item ...so they ALWAYS buy below market price. If they don't they'll suffer for it or even go broke.

In three years, gold will be $3000.00 per ounce,

Hmmm. Well, you don't know that for sure. In fact, didn't gold once plummet from $1000 down to $350 an ounce back in the 1970s? You know that gold production has increased recently and you know the governments may be forced to make some changes if gold continues to climb. I suspect it will climb higher but nobody knows what will happen with any certainly.

Many prospectors either don't care about getting top dollar or they just see the gold as being a means to purchasing other essential items. That's often how I feel about it if the nugget isn't particularly unique or attractive. Last month a Victorian prospector sold a 6.5 ounce nugget (with a minimal amount of quartz in the core of it) for about $4,000 cash. He seemed happy with the exchange and didn't care to list it on Ebay since he didn't use a computer. All he wanted was $4K cash. You may notice that many of those larger nuggets don't sell on Ebay and it's probably because few people would send so much cash to a stranger demanding Direct Deposit into his bank account. If a seller doesn't like to use PayPal because of the fees (and I know how they feel about this since), then they're cutting out more than half their potential bidders. I will RARELY consider buying anything off EBay unless I can use PayPal for the added seller/buyer protection. If some people can't factor in the fees for using EBay and PayPal then they should probably not be selling on Ebay at all. I DETEST people listing expensive nuggets with a blurry picture (it's unforgivable)... and I mean 150gram to 300gram nuggets with tiny, blurred pictures. Nobody in their right mind will ever bid on such items. Buy a cheap digital camera and figure out how to use the macro lens on it before you dare demand $35,000.00+ for your blurry golden blob! It might also help if they had a Feedback Rating of more than 0. The number of new sellers on Ebay who figure they can sell a monster nugget with zero feedback at an acceptable price but with NO FEEDBACK is baffling.

If anyone tried to entice me to buy gold off them based on a belief that it would be soon worth $3,000 per ounce, I'd be foolish for listening to him UNLESS the gold was being sold at a reasonable price. Reasonable means that I get what I deem to be a fair price for the gold. Those panned granules or the coarse alluvial gold that someone gets from their sluice etc is still gold and it's still valuable but it's not as valuable (or as rare) as 5 gram nuggets or larger.

I agree absolutely that if people knew how hard it was, how much time, effort, research and expense went into finding gold nuggets with a metal detector, then they'd pay a heck of a lot more for it. So you can charge a higher price than the market dictates is "fair" and feel better about selling it if someone forks out the cash you're asking for it... or you can sell it at close to market prices (whatever they may be). As I said before, it's a buyer's market at the moment... not a seller's market. That's why so many good nuggets are being relisted on Ebay - because the sellers are asking more for them per gram than the potential buyers are willing to accept.

Billsymo, I agree with you that selling on Ebay cuts out a lot of those 'sharks' wanting to offer you too small an amount for your gold but remember that you will still get unreasonable offers from time to time. I don't know the weight of the gold you were selling for $300 but I've been offered all sorts of things (including boats etc) that were unacceptable yo me as payment for things I've sold. I've had one guy make a ridiculous offer once... about 1/5th of what I had listed the item for. He took the time to write back to me several times to mock what he thought was too high a price. It sold for nearly twice the listing price so I made sure I wrote back to him and let him know he could have been nice about it and bought it at the original list price if he'd wanted it that bad. In your case, just politely decline them. But be prepared for a battering if your prices are way above expectation. Many prospectors like to complain when they see something on Ebay that they feel is overpriced or a potential scam. In fact, it will probably end up here where they can chew it over.

If found that the most carefree and simple way of selling gold on Ebay is to show large, clear images... list the weights within two decimal places... offer a little bit of information about the gold... and run the add for around 7 days or less. Start your price at what YOU would expect others to bid for it at rather than what YOU think it's worth. Try to answer questions in a timely fashion and don't post their questions to your Auction Page if it might deflect others from bidding on the item. If it's a special nugget, be sure to point out why you expect it to sell for more than any other nugget out there at the time. Maintain as high a feedback rating as is possible via fair postage fees and speedy delivery. Cover yourself by registering your parcels and keep in touch with they buyer.

Good luck with your Gold!

This is in response to some who have written here in response to my first post.
About Ebay, one respondent wrote that ebay and paypal take about 10%. it is not quite that much but here is how i set my price on ebay. I look up the perth mint price for spot gold which on Friday was $1409.00 per ounce, which means the yanks are going to want to sell us gold soon if the dollar stays above parity.
If I had a 1gm nugget to sell I would divide 1409 by 31.12 which woukld give me the gram price of $45.27 per gram
Then I would add 5% which is ebays charge and 3% for Paypal charges . Plus insertion fees on ebay. and $2.00 for driving to the post office to post it.
So the least I would advertise a one gram nugget for is
$45.00 Spot Price, $2.25 for ebay commission, $1.35 for paypal charges. $2.00 for petrol and $1.34 for ebay insertion fees.
a total of $51.94 and I do not feel at all guilty about the way I work it out.
I look at it this way,
In 1979 I was offered a deal to purchase gold at $50.00 dollars per ounce, I was told that gold would be $800.00 per ounce in four years r. I knew the person who made the offer and he said he was going to buy $10,000.00 worth and asked me if I wanted to do the same. I declined because I was wondering where he got his Chrystal ball. I had the Money but was like some here, a bit sceptical.
In 1984 that guy purchased a sheep station on the profit he made from $10,000.00 worth of gold puchased in 1979.. I have been kicking mysel ever since. Gold did go from $50.00 to $804.00 an ounce in four years.
The Rumour is that gold will be at least $3000.00 per ounce in 3 years. The gold I am selling now, I found when it was only $900.00 per ounce, I am not going to undersell myself.
And by the way, you can get your gold refined in Adelaide for as little as $150.00 with Peter Beck, who can refine it to 99% pure I think and then take it to the Perth Mint where you will get the best price in Australia, They will buy nuggets too but only if they are resellable as Jewellery Quality. :affraid.

wifey tells me it was 1969 to 1974. i keep forgetting I am Seventy, . What day is it again

If the price of an 1 oz Troy of gold is 1400 dollars that is the price for 1 oz of pure refined gold 99.999%. it is not the price for the oz of gold that you dig out of the ground which is seldom even close to pure. What you get for your raw gold is up to you and the buyer to negotiate between yourselves. Whether you dig it from 1000 feet down from the bottom of the ocean or from the bottom of a mile deep mine in the middle of the gibson desert makes no difference to the price per oz of pure refined gold. If you sell to a pro gold buyer they will want your gold assayed and will then pay accordingly to the assayed value.

A buyer is not going to pay you the going rate per per oz unless it assays at 99.990% pure. He has to be able to make a profit otherwise he is wasting his time and money. A collector of specimen gold and nuggets will only pay you what it is worth to him so there is nothing stopping you from waiting for the best acceptable offer.

By pricing you specimen on ebay at well above the going price per oz of pure gold you are reducing your market base significantly and if you price say a 1gm speci at 80 bucks you are not going to get many offers or will only get bids from people who might be going to change your speci into an item of jewelery who know they will be able to onsell at a good profit. if buyers are running a retail buisness from a shop front they have to sell at a price approx 3 times the item purchase price to offset their operating costs if they want to make a profit and maybe pay themselves a wage.

So you can see why some people will only offer significantly lower than your asking price if that price is above the going rate per oz.

Adrian this is not about selling pure gold, its about selling one of the rarest things that anyone can find on this earth. Gold nuggets, and I mean all gold nuggets, are the rarest metal on earth. I don't give a damn about Bullion or fine gold that comes out of deep open cut mines, which costs somewhere around $800.00 dollars an ounce to produce and refine anyway. I have worked in the mining industry, and know the difference between fine gold , or mined gold and gold nuggets. They are just not the same. I put the value on my gold on its rarity and the fact that it only costs cents to turn nuggets into pure Gold and hundreds of Dollars to refine gold that is mined.
Here is a fact you might not know.
If you have been to the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie or any other gold Mine anywhere, you will see them working 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and you will see hundreds of 200 to 300 tonne trucks come out of them pits every day. You might think that every truck load is carrying gold in every load, well think again. Some of those pits may send up 100 trucks loads per 24 hours, but , and I mean but, on some of those days only two or three of them will be carrying gold worth processing. And here is another fact. I know that if some of those trucks that are carrying gold is not carrying a certain amount of gold in it, it is dumped without processing. Because it is not profitable.
Here is where you get it wrong, Those people out there who are buying your gold nuggets are making a hell of a lot more profit that the mines that produce fine gold from a mine.
They are getting more than 90% pure gold from you and paying very little to refine it.
The Gold mines get Spot price for their refined gold, but they pay up to $900.00 per ounce to mine it, refine it and sell it.
leaving a profit of about $500.00 per ounce. Divide $500.00 by 31.12 and that works out at $16.00 dollars per gram. The difference between mined gold, and Gold nuggets is worlds apart. As a matter of fact I have just read a mining report from one company which states its estimated profit is going to fall dramatically because the cost of producing its gold has gone to $950.00 per tonne and it will have to reduce production to cut costs. which means that sooner or later the gold price will rise simply because as mines cut production the gold price will rise. Here is another point of interest. China is the largest buyer of gold in the world, and needs up to 3000 tonnes of gold to fill its demands. They will not buy at present day prices.But the world markets know that sooner or later it is going to have to buy, and that is why the price is so high, and it will sooner or later go higher, because if China buys it all in one lot it will cause other countries demands to rise because it will suddenly become scarce. Gold is not controlled by the value of the American dollar, it is a sfe haven for wealth, it will always be in demand and will always be that way . It will never go back to $50.00 per ounce because it costs $950.00 to produce.

Crikey ! That was one long sentence he hee...

G'day Billsymo

There are some gold producers that have a cash cost way below the one you mention. Newcrest "1 Apr 2010 ... Asia-Pacific's leading gold producer, with a standout portfolio of long life, ... the financial strength of both organisations would make the combination ... With cash costs of US$348/oz (quarter ending December 2009"

There are prices ranging from the $350 to $400 all the way up to the one you mention at $950 the higher the cash cost the closer to the wind they will sail. Mines at $400 cash cost have a lot more leigh way.

Anyway its nuggets that can be detected with our minelabs etc that we are most interested in here

I agree gold nuggets that look good should sell for above spot price, then you have small bits and species that get dollied up and you still need to reveive a good price for this as well, if you can get 10% below spot for small bits and dollied species would be ok.

cheers dave

I wa never good at putting in commas, full stops or dotting the eyes Stevo, maybe you can do it for me lol.

Billsymo.
That was a good post and I agree with a lot of what you have said.
I do have a smattering of understanding of the costs invloved in mining gold.
The going price of refined bullion gold after all other economic factors have been evaluated will determine if a particular gold producing area is going to be profitable enough to mine. then and only then will mining commence.. unless you want to go wheels up very fast.
Any mine will have good and bad days or weeks but if exploration and assaying was done correctly and accurately the mine will pay its owners and employees for a predetermined time and then the mine will close. or a new area commenced. So the mine will always be payed a deffinate dollar amount per oz no matter how difficult the gold is to extract, those costs are taken into account when exploration and assaying is finished. The mining cost and the price of gold determins whether or not to mine.
For sure nice nuggets will fetch a good price like any rare item, I buy nugs on ebay and I am prepared to go 50% above bullion price and thats it for me but others I know will go up to 300% over bullion if the nug is truely special.

Most ordinary People (the majority of ebayers)who buy their gold on ebay are looking for a bargain(that is what ebay is about). There is no wholesale price for gold where the public is conserned so they go by the current price per oz.
I buy loose gemstones but will not pay more than wholesale....pointless for me. diamonds do not have a rock solid fixed price for any particular stone and quality so the prices on ebay are much lower than what you or I would pay at a jeweler but gold price is set at any one particular moment in time and that is what people are prepared to pay and they (through lack of understanding of the gold price) get a bit miffed when they think they are getting ripped off on ebay prices when in fact in most cases they are not.

As I said earlier, A nugget will get whatever price a buyer and seller is prepared to deal on.

The mining companies like Newcrest,also have mining interests outside of Australia, where labour is cheap, and so their overall costs are lower. Their overheads in Australia are very much higher, but they balance it out to the shareholders by putting in all costs in the balance sheet.Including The cheap labour costs in places like New Guinea, the Phillipines and Indonesia and South africa makes their balance sheet better. My ex son in law had a gold mine in the Phillipines where his cost for producing gold was only about $200.00 per ounce, until the government kicked him out.

G'day Billsymo

Yes I understand what your saying about averaging.

What might be interesting is to see wether members here have tried to work out what the average price for the nuggets they have detected is, and how that compares to the price you may be able to sell them for. I know its a hobby for a lot, and the cost of getting them isn't what it's all about, I know it's the thrill of the chase and all that.

cheers dave

billsymo,

Aahh, Philippines gold; I tossed around the idea of cranking up a gold mine in the Pines, (Davow) figured the costs would be low but then decided I valued my life more and the gov doesn't like outsiders messing about with their gold.

Just wondering if anyone has tried selling gold and whom to with the recent high value of gold?