How do you Value a Nugget

WHAT DO COLLECTORS WANT IN A PIECE OF GOLD TO EXTRACT A PREMIUM PRICE, AND HOW MUCH ABOVE CURRENT GOLD PRICE IS NORMALLY EXPECTED?

A question 'd like to know the answer to. I have lately detected one 6oz nugget and 4ozs of nuggets between 4gm and 27gm. Who do you sell to and get better than gold value for your nuggets?

No matter how much you get for your nuggets it never seems enough lol. The only place to sell nuggets in my opinion atm is Ebay. I recently sold a few and got up to $60 a gram but averaged about $45-$50 a gram. A good picture cropped and zoomed in to show the nuggets detail generally gets more bidders, take your photo in super-macro. Experience tells me that this along with listing your nuggets for 7 days, finishing on a Mon, Tues or Wens night around 9.00pm brings the most attention. I always start my auctions at .99c, this gets more bidders interested and the more bidders you have the more people Ebay sends email reminders to with messages like " DON'T MISS OUT" , "ENDING SOON" "YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID" etc etc, all free extra advertising.

WAT IS THE BIGEST NUGGET YOU HAVE SEEN SOLD ON EBAY ?

It's not that hard to figure it out if you watch the trends online or amongst buyers... I might suggest that you watch some nuggets on Ebay. Most sellers list their gold on a Sunday Night after 7pm and run their auctions for 7 days. Pure nuggets really do vary in appearance. Gold Specimens can command a premium depending on their natural appeal to the eye. I tend to only sell the uglier bits myself. The easiest formula is to weigh the nugget to work out the minimum value. Buy some digital scales for smaller nuggets with TWO digits AFTER the decimal point so you can give the full weight to a potential buyer. Weigh each nugget several times before listing the weight to be sure you don't get the numbers wrong. If you make a mistake, people will consider you dishonest, even if the mistake was genuine. For people finding gold regularly (sluicers or detectorists), it will be in your interests to find a single buyer who will regularly purchase everything you find. Each prospector keeps an eye out for such a buyer. It keeps things simple. Gold nuggets etc are apparently GST free for the finder who sells it the first time around - but it doesn't stop people adding GST to their purchases to get more money. If you get caught out, it's bad news ... though it's hard to enforce.

The second thing for consideration is appearance. If it has been pick-struck, the nugget is relatively worthless to anyone but the less discerning buyer and it should likely be relegated to "bullion" category because scratched nuggets tend to command a price close to that of the current spot-price. Many sellers on Ebay do not show the scratched side of a nugget or they will not mention that the nugget is damaged.

Specimens that attract mineral collectors are highly sought after. This includes crystalline gold etc as well. Too many sellers claim their gold is crystalline when it is not. Some specimens can have beautifully terminated quartz crystals with fine wire gold protruding from the base. Not all specimens need to be large in order to be valuable. Specimen buyers from around the world watch Australia closely to find unique specimens.


Picture Nugget: Kind of looks like the old St George logo. Shame they were bought out by Westpac.

Picture-Nuggets (nuggets which resemble something such as a horse or a face) can command a premium price. I purchased a dragon shaped nugget online (the seller felt that it looked like a duck) for $140 and have had offers from St George Bank for upwards of $7000 for it.

The people who pay a premium for gold nuggets are those on Ebay. They pay far more than what is fair because they either don't know the value themselves or they get into a bidding war and don't know when to stop. If I really want something online, I'll put 5 times the anticipated price down just 10 seconds before the auction ends so be aware that most of the bidding takes place in the final hour in most instances.


Alluvial takings from the Sluice are ideal candidates for 2 gram & 10 gram+ parcels on Ebay.


A specimen - yet one which would make NICE jewellery if cut into small cabs & polished.


Several ounces of gold locked in quartz

As for general gold nuggets that are neither picture-nuggets or specimens.... size, weight, shape and inclusions all play a part. A nugget with small stone inclusions can be attractive to some people. Ironstone makes a nice contrast against the bright gold. A nice, rounded gnarly shape is often sought after but the rounder it is, the weightier it tends to be... and many collectors won't pay for a small heavy nugget when they can get a bigger, flatter one for the same price. Some like flat bits because they have a larger surface area and sit well if turned into jewellery or if placed in a display container. Holes in a nugget means it will be larger than its apparent weight to they eye and should cost less than a heavier one.


Gold Specimen in Ironstone


Gold Specimen with Quartz

Many prospectors sell nuggets to people they know or members of their local prospecting club at "mates rates" of around $26 per gram. Others prefer to sell at a rate closer to the current spot price which may be around $38 per gram (I'm not sure at the moment). But online (eg EBay), the ceiling preferred is about $45 per gram with some selling close to $50 per gram.

Finally, the rarity of a nugget must be considered. Nuggets over 5 grams are considered to be extremely rare. Subgrammers are the most common. Anything over 5 grams tends to creep up in price per gram. But when a nugget is over half an ounce, they can rise depending on appearance and other qualities above $50 per gram. If a nugget is several ounces in weight, it can command almost whatever the market can handle at the time. $70 per gram is not uncommon although more could be demanded if the nugget was more than say 4 ounces. If you sell on EBay, people won't consider these larger nuggets unless they are below $60 per gram so you need to seek out a dealer or a nugget collector. You might be able to sell it on consignment through a nugget dealer.


A three+ Gram nugget... tiny but dense.


A flatter 50 gram nugget... which is much larger than the 3 grammer above.

If you just want the cash, there are bullion buyers who advertise in the local Gold, Gem & Treasure magazine. They'll melt your gold, refine it, pay you an amount close to spot price - less a fee for the process. Most sluice operators on good runs sell to a bullion dealer. Note though that there are a few dirty-dealers out there who will tell you the gold extracted was less than there really was. This is the reason why the finders of the Welcome Stranger slept on the floor of the smelting room when the Welcome Stranger was cut up and smelted over an evening. Even today, I have had diggers in Queensland tell me that they sold the same wights of gold from the same areas to two different bullion dealers and received VERY different assayer's reports as to the gold content. So beware.

Nobody cares at all what the "percentage of purity is" when buying nuggets unless they are refining it.... but you'll find out if you sell to a bullion dealer because some areas of WA gold is quite often less pure with many areas giving up gold that is around 60% gold with the rest consisting of copper and other metals like nickel and silver. Looks like normal yellow gold but with a slight coppery-pink tinge to it. You won't see it unless you set a piece down next to a fairly pure nugget. Most American gold seems to consist of around 60% Gold and the rest is often silver or copper. Hence the gold looks less colour saturated compared to ours. And this is why Americans buy so much Australian gold. In fact they often spend around 10 million per year buying Aussie nuggets. But some areas of WA give up purer gold than others and Victorian and NSW gold is often touted (sometimes erroneously) as being the 'purest' in Australia. I can't count the times that a local from some remote town in Australia has tried to impress me by saying his gold is the purest or that their town is known for the purest gold in Australia.

If you sell a nugget and post it to the buyer, send it as a "Mineral Specimen" and insure it as such. There's an old clause in the postal charter for Australian Post which prohibits the posting of "Unrefined Bullion" which goes back to the days of the Goldrush when armed Gold Escorts were used for the transport of gold (at a premium price) so as to make the Royal Postal Service unattractive to bushrangers. Registered (and insured) mail should be used for all mineral specimens to prevent the odds of postal staff stealing it. It's rare but it does happen... especially to items sent to the USA for some reason.

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Selling

So weight your nuggets, see if they look attractive to the eye. A lot of gold is somewhat unattractive and needs to be cleaned. Some large and small specimens mixed with host rock can only find use in a smelting furnace. If it looks good to the eye, sell it to a nugget collector or a nugget dealer. Keep it if you think the price will rise. The Perth Mint used to buy nuggets and unrefined alluvial.

Always use clear pictures when posting them to obtain a sale. TOO MANY ebay sellers post the blurriest pictures for some of the most expensive nuggets out there. Nobody will bid on a blurry picture. How they expect to sell a nugget for $30,000 with such a crappy, poorly lit, blurred image is beyond me. If you can afford a GP/SD/GPX detector, you should be able to afford a camera with a macro feature setting. Heck, they all have macro. There's just no excuse. It doesn't have to be a great picture, just one which shows the true appearance of the nugget to be sold.

Another important thing to consider if selling on EBay is to set up a Paypal Account. Sure, they charge a small fee for the privilege. But Paypal offers insurance against fraud online and for purchases on Ebay. Set up a Paypal account to allow people to pay you from anywhere in the world and later transfer this into your personal bank accounts later. If you can't figure out that you should ADD any fees to the price of the item you wish to sell, then you probably shouldn't be using Ebay to sell your Gold. I detest the number of people who demand that you transfer money directly into their bank accounts under the guise of saving on Paypal fees. Paypal is safer for the buyer. If you don't like the Paypal fees, add the cost percentage to your sale price. By refusing Paypal buyers, you cut out more than 70% of your potential bidders. Offer Direct Deposit as an alternative but don't exclude it.

You can use a picture of the nugget on your digital scales as proof of the weight although this is not necessary. However, it is a good idea to put up a picture of the nugget with something else in the image for scale. A lot of new bidders have no concept of weight so when they receive a subgram nugget in the mail that looked to be the size of a can of Coca Cola on their computer, they get upset and may leave bad feedback unfairly.

Cheers,



Marco

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PS: Biggest nugget I've seen sold on Ebay was for $49,000

THANK YOU MARCO FANTASTIC POST REPLY JUST LOVE THE BUI$NE$$

SIDE OF OUR HOBBY!!!!!!

Remember, if using Paypal DO NOT send anything to the buyer until you have transfered the money out of your Paypal account into your bank account and NEVER authorise Ebay/Paypal to take money from your bank account.
Paypal can, will and do either freeze accounts and reverse transactions if there is a dispute or the buyer says he never recieved the item, even if he did. A very common scam in Paypal.

As for cutting out 70% of your bidders by not accepting Paypal, who gives a fig of your item sells and you recieve what you wanted.

Marco, curious to know the weight of the $7000 nugget and how St George came to know about it and why you didn't sell it to them?

madtuna wrote:

Marco, curious to know the weight of the $7000 nugget and how St George came to know about it and why you didn't sell it to them?

Madtuna: It's probably under 3 grams. I think it's about 2.8 grams... I can give you a precise measurement if you want me to dig it out as it's under glass at the moment. Bought it on Ebay a couple of years ago. Can't remember who the seller was although I usually print out the details so I'll have it someplace. I showed one of the girls at my local St George branch and she sent a link of the photograph to the CEO. I can't sell it to them now though... my wife has grown attached to it and she likes Dragons. She's the one who asked me to bid on it. I had an offer for $1200 last year from another dragon lover. What the heck is it with dragons?

Bruno C: This has to be the only hobby that can pay for itself on occasion. If you treat it like golf or tennis, it becomes a bonus when you find gold. Those who take it up just to make money and "get rich" will probably become disillusioned when they realize how much effort is often involved. Great fun if the weather makes it easy though!

Cheers,

Marco

Gday

I have sold some nuggets on ebay from time to time, never achieved over $38 a gram no matter what they looked like.

Have one at the moment that looks exactly like Australia except some of nth Qld is missing, sold one last year that looked just like a platypus, just got basic spot price for that.

At the end of the day a nugget is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it on the day, and at the moment buyers are a bit fickle, the rush to buy gold because of the world economic problems has all but ended, its not as hot as it was a few months ago anyway.

I have a few issues with paypal, although I have a paypal account I always say that I prefer payment by direct deposit, and one of the main reasons is that ebay own paypal, and they tried to make it so all transactions went through paypal only, talk about triple dipping, greedy sods!, firstly you pay a listing fee, then you pay a final value fee, then you pay a paypal fee, and guess what?, if you sold your item to an overseas buyer then you had to pay extra paypal fees due to the currency exchange.

If its paid directly to me then I only cop two lots of fees, so WHY wouldnt I do it that way if I can??, and how can you possibly work out that you are going to cover all the fees if you start a listing of an item at 99c, the only way you can do that is to list it at the gram price you want and if thats over the spot price no body will touch it anyway.

If someone offered me $2500 a gram for a nugget, I wouldnt care if it looked like Pammy Andersons knockers , it would be in the mail asap , sometimes I just dont get it??.

stayyerAU

yup...$2500.00 a gr..unbelievable
if a bank CEO is spending that sort of shareholders money it says a lot about or banking sector.

I have a 4 grammer that if I drink a lot of gin & tonics, then right before I fall over and throw up I stand on my head and squint at it's reflection in a mirror from 10 yards, it resembles Jesus Christ eating pizza.
Dominos in Rome offered me $40,000.00 for it but I knocked it back...apparently the pope mobile often frequents the drive-thru

To get much better than just spot gold price, why is there no address and phone numbers here of any nugget buyer(s)? Either some type of brick and morter place--jewelry store or a contact of persons name who buys gold nuggets?

There must be either one or more Swiss, French, German, Dutch, Belgium, UK, Saudi, Dubai, Indian, Chinese, American, etc., buyers or a wealthy personal collector(s) of gold nuggets that snaps them up for very good prices being somewhere in demand?

Is the stunning beauty of very rare natural gold nuggets going unnoticed in the Professional market(both high end and consumer)? (Are Gems and Diamonds getting all the unfair attention in Antwerp, Belgium, etc. while (the collector, numistic, and jewelry value of) gold nuggets are looked down on as inferior to Gem stones?)

What is the problem? Or there is no problem and these contacts do exist now and we just have not found these names and phone numbers yet, but they are out there?

Or do these contacts don't exist and need to exist, and gold nuggets are underpriced?

Yes a 200 ouncer can sell at a very premium price at Christies auction in NY or to a Las Vegas Casino, but I am of course taking about much smaller pieces that just about all of us have and find.

" had offers from St George Bank for upwards of $7000 "...oh please

I showed my daughter, she reckons it looks more like a seahorse. Maybe send a pic to this mob www.seahorsesoc.org

They may not offer $7000 but they may rent it for thier float in the gay mardi gras next Feb

TuronYellowFever wrote:" had offers from St George Bank for upwards of $7000 "...oh please

You clearly don't understand the value that some people see in picture nuggets. One went on Ebay last year with a religious themed image - final price was over $12,000. Weight was just a few grams. When I put down a price for that picture nugget, I believe I bid several hundred dollars over the value to lock it down. And don't forget the "Jesus Nugget" that keeps showing up every few months at a paltry $50,000 start price and a $100,000 buy now price. It's only around 19 grams or so. You should be puzzling more about why I didn't take up the offer rather than why someone would offer so much. Don't forget the "Madonna and Child" nugget that is only a few millimeters long... belongs to a Victorian couple. They've been offered a small fortune for the same nugget but have declined. It's only a quarter the size of a tic-tac!


Madtuna: I was showing the dragon-shaped nugget to the manager of a Chinese restaurant that I know. (I'd interviewed him on several occasions about the Chinese on the goldfields in the early days). He also felt that he thought it looked like a seahorse... so you're not the only one. I thought he'd see a "lucky dragon" in it but he didn't.

You should have placed it more strategically against the Coil logo... LOL!

The top middle one looks a bit like a Penguin. Then again, I've been seeing penguins for nearly 6 years now.
Try offering it to George Miller.