The goldBuying your first gold
Buy it the wayyour aunty would.
Every family has one person who knows how to buy gold: what to ask, where to press, when to smile and leave. If yours is on the other side of the world, or you are about to become that person, start here.
Four decisions,taken in order.
First gold goes wrong in one way: the piece gets chosen before the questions get asked. Take the decisions in this order and the counter holds no surprises, whichever counter it is.
Settle the carat first
Decide what the metal should be before you look at a single piece. Carat counts how much of the metal is gold, out of twenty-four parts, and it sets the colour, the price and what a scale will say the piece is worth in twenty years. We keep 21 and 22 carat and nothing else. The reasoning takes a full page, and it is written down in the gold guide.
Buy by weight, not by the tag
A high-carat piece has an honest price: the weight in grams, times the day’s rate, plus a making charge for the work. That is the whole sum, and a counter selling gold properly will show it to you. Nothing in our shop wears a ticket, because the rate moves daily and the sum is done in front of you. How gold is priced walks through it line by line.
Think about selling before you buy
It sounds like a grim question to bring to a happy purchase. It is the real difference between gold and jewellery. A 22 carat bangle can be carried into almost any gold shop in the world and weighed into money, while a plated fashion piece is worth whatever a stranger feels like offering. What that weighing looks like is on the old gold exchange page.
Four questions for any counter.
Ours included. Gold is one of the few purchases where you are allowed to check everything at the counter, in numbers, on the spot. These four do the checking, in Kilburn or anywhere else.
First, what carat is this?
The answer is a number, and it should also be struck inside the piece: 916 for 22 carat, 875 for 21. Ask to be shown the mark, not just told it. How to read the marks →
Second, what does it weigh?
Grams, read from a scale you can watch. Weight is most of what you are paying for, and a counter that treats it as a secret has answered a different question.
Third, what is today’s rate?
The gold price is public and moves daily, and a jeweller selling by weight knows the figure without looking it up. Rate times grams tells you what the metal alone is worth, before a single hour of work is counted.
Last, what is the making charge?
The number that varies most from shop to shop. It pays for the work, and it is the part the scale gives no credit for when you sell. Have it named before you say yes, not found at the till.
Ask us all four in one breath if you like. The scale sits on the counter, the rate is the day’s, and the answers take about a minute.
Before you come in
The gold guide below is the long answer to the carat question. After it, how gold is priced shows the whole sum worked, and gold as a gift is for the many first pieces that are given, not bought.
Ask us thehard questions.
Bring this page in on your phone. Carat, weight, rate, making: we will answer all four over the scale with the piece in front of you, because that is how we would want to be sold to.
364-378 Prospect Road, Kilburn SA 5084
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30am – 6pm