The days are slowly getting longer and spring is around the corner, which means a new fashion season will soon be upon us.
The jewellery fashion gurus are pointing to large hoop and chandelier-style earrings as one of the big trends in gold jewellery for the new season. Elaborate engagement rings, charm bracelets and necklaces that you can add to are also on the agenda.
The jewellery trend-spotters say that rose gold – which has been hot for a few years – will continue to be a major player this year, especially when it’s adorned with gemstones. Rose gold was originally fashionable in the Victorian era and takes its pinkish colour from copper added to the gold.
If you are looking to refresh your gold jewellery this year, a great way to fund it is to recycle your old broken and unworn pieces. The majority of the gold we buy goes straight back into the system to be refashioned into new jewellery, and it’s likely some of the brand new pieces you’re already lusting after have spent time in another incarnation.
You may have some rose gold in your collection, which can be recycled just like the purer forms of gold. It can be separated down to its constituent parts before it re-enters the jewellery world and may find itself as a yellow gold item next time around.
It’s also a great time to hunt out your unwanted gold even if you’re not looking to replace it, because gold is enjoying another surge in prices. The uncertainty around new US President Donald Trump’s policies means that investors are flocking to the precious metal as a safe place to put their money, so you can expect a decent return for your pieces. Remember, the ‘scrap’ gold price you receive will be lower than the main gold price, because your old gold has to be processed before it can be reused, but there are still plenty of opportunities to release and even make money from old gold pieces.
The price of gold hit the £1,000 an ounce mark earlier this week, making now a great time to make as much as you can from your old gold jewellery.
When you sell your unwanted or broken gold for scrap, the fee you’ll receive in return is based on the weight of the gold and the purity of the metal. Unfortunately, ‘scrap’ gold doesn’t pay out at £1,000 an ounce – the rate is lower to reflect the fact the old pieces have to be examined, processed and brought back into the system before they can be reused, and this all costs money. However, when the main gold price rises, the scrap gold price does too to reflect the value of the precious metal.
Once your old gold pieces have been assessed and weighed, they are melted down, usually to be used to make new jewellery. It’s remarkable that gold can be used again and again without every losing any of its value or lustre. The gold wedding ring you are wearing now could well have been mined centuries ago and have had many other lives before it found its way on to your finger.
This is another one of the beauties of gold recycling – not only can you earn money, but you are helping the planet at the same time. The more gold that comes back into the system means that reliance on mining new metal is reduced, and gold mining is well known for the damaging chemicals it uses to extract the treasure from the ground.
So if you’ve started 2017 in need of a financial boost, now is the ideal moment to get rummaging around for your unwanted gold pieces to earn some extra cash while prices are high. Don’t forget, we also take old and broken silver jewellery for recycling too.
India is one of the top countries for recycling gold and this wedding season, which runs through to May, it’s forecast that 400 tonnes of the precious metal will be melted down to create new jewellery.
It’s traditional to give heavy gold jewellery, from rings and bangles to earrings and pendants, as wedding gifts for Indian brides and grooms. This year, there is a shortage of gold available and jewellers are experiencing a steep rise in the number of people bringing in old gold items to be turned into new jewellery to be given as gifts, the International Business Times reported.
Around one million couples are expected to tie the knot during the wedding season and meeting demand for gold for the marriage market is proving difficult. The Indian government has imposed restrictions on importing the precious metal to try to reduce its trade deficit and import taxes have been increased three times in recent months.
Kumar Jain, a gold retailer in Mumbai, told Reuters: “In this wedding season, since there is no gold available in the market, people have started coming with recycled gold.
“They have started exchanging the old gold for new and pay the labour charges.”
India is the world’s second biggest importer of gold after China but the Indian government is trying to reduce the amount it brings in from abroad. It’s set up a number of initiatives to persuade people to part with their old gold, including specialist recycling centres around the country. The World Gold Council reckoned an astonishing 20,000 tonnes of the precious metal was tucked away in Indian homes in 2012.
The demand for gold may not be as great here in the UK, but when you recycle your old or unwanted pieces, much of it will be used in the same way as it is in India to create new jewellery.
It’s a New Year and time for a new look in your jewellery box.
According to industry watchers, gold is set to be a big trend in jewellery again this year – and the items made from it will be on the large side too. Experts are predicting everyone will be going mad for big earrings, such as hoop and chandelier styles, and chunky statement bracelets.
Charm necklaces are also forecast to play a big part in the fashionable woman’s jewellery collection this year, after the huge success of charm bracelets in recent years. Delicate collectible pieces that can be added to your necklace throughout the year are predicted to be one of the major trends for 2017.
It’s a great time for a New Year clear out of your jewellery box to make room for the exciting new pieces that are coming through. By choosing to sell your unwanted or old, unfashionable gold jewellery, you can raise money to replace it with new fashionable pieces and play a part in restocking the industry at the same time. All the precious metal for this new gold jewellery has to be sourced, and the more old gold put back into the system for recycling, the less that has to come from mining which can cause damage to the environment.
We don’t care about the age or style of the gold jewellery you send in to be recycled. As long as it’s pure gold, not gold plated, we can offer you a great price based on its weight and carat.
We also recycle silver items so they can be used again and again. In addition to silver jewellery, we’re looking for other old silver household items from bowls to hair brushes.
If your resolution was to declutter for 2017, we can help you make money from your clear out too.
Worldwide demand for recycled gold – like the old broken gold jewellery you have tucked away – is set to climb in the next few years as mines produce less and less of the precious metal.
According to research by Bloomberg, the amount of ‘new’ gold being mined could fall by around a third by 2025. Just three new primary gold deposits were discovered in 2014 and if new discoveries continue at this pace, the need for more recycled gold to meet the market’s demand will continue to jump.
It actually takes around 10 years for new gold discoveries to be turned into commercial mines that are producing the precious metal for sale on the market.
Ian Telfer, chairman of Canadian company Goldcorp, said that it was impossible for miners to suddenly start supplying more new gold to the market to meet demand and take advantage of high prices we’ve seen during 2016. He added: “We are having a heck of a time finding gold.”
However, recycled gold can be made available to buyers almost immediately. Once the items are brought in, checked, graded and melted down, they are ready for reuse, whether that’s in creating new jewellery, gold coins or bullion bars for investors.
There’s also the ethical issue of new gold versus old gold. Chemicals that harm the environment are used in gold mining, whereas old gold needs very little processing to prepare it for reuse. That’s one of the key reasons why reclaimed gold is becoming so popular with trendy jewellers, as an added attraction for buyers who are concerned about the planet.
So, whether you want to help the planet, or just earn a little extra to spend over the Christmas period, it’s worth looking through your old unwanted and broken gold jewellery and playing your part in the recycling revolution.
The Three Kings certainly had something right in their Christmas gift giving list. While most of us wouldn’t know quite what to do with a festive present of frankincense or myrrh, it’s unlikely anyone would say no to a piece of gold jewellery waiting for them underneath the Christmas tree.
If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping – or haven’t started yet – gold is almost a guaranteed winner. And you can raise extra funds to finish off your festive shopping, or perhaps buy something special for yourself, by gathering together your old, unwanted or broken gold items to sell for recycling.
The beauty of selling on your old gold is that it’s the ultimate in recycling. The gold ring on your finger or chain around your neck may well be recycled already, and can be again and again without losing any of its lustre.
Jewellers Brilliant Earth, which only uses recycled precious metals in its designs, says: “Because our reclaimed silver, gold, platinum, and palladium are refined back into their pure elements, they are of identical quality to newly mined metals.”
Recycled gold is having a bit of a fashion moment. Increasingly, eco-conscious jewellers are making more of a point of using gold that has been ‘reclaimed’, and advertising it as such, to attract environmentally-friendly shoppers. There’s often a premium to be paid on designer pieces made from recycled gold too.
It’s likely that as the trend reaches a wider market place, the demand for scrap gold to create new pieces will also rise. That means your unwanted pieces tucked away in the back of a drawer or jewellery box will be in high demand. Plus, the strong prices that gold bullion has achieved this year makes now a great time to consider cashing in your unwanted gold jewellery.
We’ve heard about how much gold is contained in the circuitry of discarded mobile phones and laptops, but the precious metal is also lurking in older technology.
A new company has been set up to extract gold from old fashioned TVs, using robots to deal with the more dangerous aspects of the job. French water and waste business Veolia is aiming to remove the gold and other recyclable materials from around 300,000 old-style TVs a year from its site at Bridgnorth in Shropshire.
The company has brought in two robots to break down the old TVs and deal with the dangerous LCD light tubes that have mercury inside. Once the framework has been separated out, the different recyclable parts are removed and sorted.
Like modern mobiles, tablets and laptops, old TVs use gold in their circuitry and once this has been harvested, it’s sent off to another site so that the precious metal can be extracted and used again.
The presence of the gold helps make it a worthwhile operation. Electronics manufacturers have to pay for the old equipment they’ve made to be recycled, but Veolia only receives around £1 per set. Although the work costs more to carry out, the company keeps the profits from the gold and other elements it removes from the old TVs.
Veolia technical director Richard Kirkman told the BBC: “There is no part that we cannot find a use for.
“More than 90 per cent is recycled into a useful material - different types of plastic, glass, non-ferrous metal.”
If you choose to go down the recycling route yourself by selling your old, broken and unwanted gold jewellery, you’ll certainly raise a lot more than £1 per item. The high values gold has achieved this year means that more and more people have been opting to put their old ‘scrap’ gold back into the system and make some extra spending money at the same time.
The amount of gold that was recycled in the third quarter of this year jumped by 30 per cent compared to the same three months in 2015, as more people rushed to take advantage of the high price of the precious metal.
That’s according to new figures from the World Gold Council, which calculated that globally, more than 341 tonnes of gold were recycled between July and September.
The leading gold recycling nation was India, which as we’ve seen, has a major campaign underway to persuade people to part with their unwanted gold to reduce the country’s reliance in the amount of bullion it has to import. People in India buy more gold than anywhere else in the world other than China.
Indians recycled 39 tonnes of gold over the three-month period, the highest amount since the final quarter of 2012, the report said.
Although you may only have a few ounces in old, broken or unwanted gold tucked away in jewellery boxes or at the back of a draw, the superb values that gold has achieved this year mean that now is a great time to turn them in to cash. Remember, when you sell gold as ‘scrap’ – in other words, broken or unwanted pieces to be melted down and used again – you will receive the ‘scrap gold’ price for them, not the higher gold price that is quoted in the financial markets. That’s a reflection of the processing work that has to take place so the gold can be used again.
Meanwhile, the World Gold Council reported a quarterly drop in demand for gold for jewellery of 21 per cent, mainly due to the high prices. It’s expecting demand to recover in the run-up to Christmas, which is always a popular time of year to give the gift of gold jewellery.
India is one country that takes its gold recycling very seriously.
It’s the second biggest importer of gold globally after China and there’s currently a massive push for people to recycle their unwanted gold to help reduce the amount of the precious metal that’s shipped in – and costs the Indian government millions in duty.
To make it even easier to recycle gold, the country’s first mobile collection unit has hit the road – a van that’s on call to come and collect gold direct from your home. Muthoot Exim, part of the giant Indian Muthoot Pappachan Group, has launched the Mobile Muthoot Gold Point in addition to the nine Gold Point collection centres it runs around India.
The specialist secure van is equipped with state of the art gold testing equipment to make sure customers are receiving the correct price for their old jewellery and ornaments. The gold can even be melted down in the van while the customer watches.
The van pays out cash for the precious metal or makes an online payment into the customer’s bank account.
Muthoot Pappachan Group director, Thomas George Muthoot, told India today: "The move will also be in sync with the Government’s vision to recycle as much gold as possible and our mobile van service will help facilitate it better."
Muthoot says it’s collected an astonishing 200kg gold from its specialist recycling centres in the last year and a half and plans to open another four before the end of the year.
Although we can’t promise to send a van to your door to collect your old or broken gold jewellery, we do give you an efficient service to turn your unwanted gold into cash. It’s a great way to make some extra money for Christmas, so have a look in your jewellery box to see what you can convert into cash.
When you’re sorting out your old unwanted or broken gold pieces to cash in, remember not all gold jewellery is created equally, and the higher the gold content, the higher the price you’ll receive.
The most common carats (ct) of gold used in jewellery in the UK are 9ct, 18ct and 24ct . In its purest form, gold is a very soft metal and in order to make it tough enough to withstand the rigours of life as a piece of jewellery, other metals are added to it.
Nine carat gold is 37.5 per cent pure gold, 18ct is 75 per cent pure and 24ct is pure gold. Typically, other metals such as silver and copper are added to make the gold stronger. White gold obtains its colour thanks to the addition of silver and the currently very fashionable rose gold – which was also a favourite of the Victorians – receives its pinkish hue because copper has been added.
Experts can often tell the carat of a piece simply by its feel and colour. The richer the gold colour, generally the higher the carat. They will also look at the hallmark, which is made up of different symbols showing where the gold was ‘assayed’ or tested for purity and will often show the date the piece was manufactured.
Gold hallmarks are often so small that a magnifying glass is needed to identify them properly and in many cases, if a piece is old or has been worn frequently, they may have blurred or disappeared all together.
Scrap gold is also tested for purity with an assay test, which uses acid solutions on a minute scraping of gold from the item. The more gold that is left after the solution is applied, the purer the metal.
If you want to try to identify the purity of your jewellery, there are numerous online guides to hallmarks you can find through Google. You can also buy home assaying kits but this is usually best left to the experts.
The growing importance of recycled gold was one of the big themes at a major international gathering of jewellers in the US.
The Portland Jewellery Symposium, held every year in Portland, Oregon, in the US, puts the spotlight on new techniques and developments in the industry worldwide. The issues discussed at the event inform the new approaches that jewellers large and small take when they are creating new designs and exploring new ways of working, Forbes reported.
This year, one of the areas under the spotlight was how the industry can responsibly source gold. And in addition to the growing pressure for more socially and environmentally-friendly ways of mining the precious metal, the use of recycled gold – the precious metal that’s obtained from your old and unwanted pieces – was a big focus.
Responsible sourcing expert, Bennett Freeman, gave one of the keynote speeches, in which he pointed out that demand from the public for sustainable gold is growing.
He said: “These pressures, this kind of scrutiny is not going to go away. The 21st Century is the century of sustainability, the century of accountability, the century of transparency.
“Every company, every industry is going to face ever rising pressures and expectations to be straightforward about how it does its business, about the character and quality of its content, of its products throughout the entire supply chain.”
One of the jewellers at the event, Toby Pomeroy is leading the pack when it comes to using recycled precious metals in his designs. He brands pieces made this way as EcoGold and EcoSilver and it’s won him a major following.
His business has received such demand for its Eclipse hoop earrings that are made completely from recycled precious metals, that he had to find a way of making them by machine inside of by hand. “We’re really causing a revolution in the jewellery and mining industries. Anything is possible,” he said.
Mobile phone giant Samsung has been in the headlines after the worldwide recall of its Galaxy Note 7 after a number of incidents of overheating.
The company is desperate for customers who bought the ill-fated phone to return it and one reason has to be that the device contains valuable electronics including recycled gold that can be used again.
It’s estimated that for every million smartphones that are recycled, 75lbs of gold, 772lb of silver and 35,000-plus lbs of copper can be recovered. In the US alone, Samsung is trying to recover around two million of the models, although some customers are keeping a tight grip on their Galaxy Note 7s despite the risks, Fortune reported.
Samsung is offering customers who return their Galaxy Note 7s a refund plus cash off another model from its range. Once the phones are returned, they are passed on to specialist electronics recyclers, who ‘mine’ the devices for their precious metals to use again.
However, there are concerns that recovering the gold and silver in the Galaxy Note 7s will be more difficult than usual. Samsung has glued down the batteries in the phones, and it’s these batteries that are causing the overheating issue, making recovering the precious metals a potentially dangerous task.
According to Wired, an engineer from iFixit who tried to dismantle the model said the process was like carrying out brain surgery on a patient who might catch fire.
The electronics industry is keen to recover the recycled gold used in mobile phone electronics because of demand from manufacturers for the recycled metal for other products.
There is of course a much easier way of obtaining recycled gold, which doesn’t put you at any risk of catching fire. The old, broken and unwanted gold jewellery and items we buy for cash are all melted down and returned to the system, where they could be turned into anything from a wedding ring to a bullion bar – or even find their way into your next smartphone, laptop or tablet.
A former London-based jewellery designer, who moved to Los Angeles is making a name for herself by using recycled gold.
Durrah Khalil was never one for recycling until she started working with the LA-based brand Love Goodly.
She had previously relied on virgin gold, which was manufactured to her designs by a team in Italy.
Now she is using gold made from recycled items, such as the broken and unwanted gold pieces that we buy from our customers, and gold salvaged from other sources.
Durrah told the New Straits Times: “Recycled metal costs more but you can’t tell the difference just by looking at it. “We’re working with the same people in Italy that we’ve been with since the beginning, so I’m OK. I trust then and they trust that I’m doing this for the right reasons.”
The designer is now aiming to make her whole jewellery line between 80 and 100 per cent sustainable within the next 12 months. Recycled gold jewellery is becoming popular among buyers who support sustainability and prefer to live a greener lifestyle. They like reused gold because of their wish to avoid contributing to the harm gold mining does to the environment and many people are event prepared to pay more for it as a result. Using gold again may be fashionable now, but it’s not a new trend.
Jewellers in the UK have been using recycled gold to make their products alongside ‘new’ gold for many years. It’s impossible to tell whether the gold ring on your finger, or the broken gold earrings lying forgotten in your jewellery box, are made from newly-mined gold or whether they was created from melted down items that have been around for decades. That’s because the precious metal doesn’t lose any of its qualities and can be used time and time again. With demand from the industry high for more recycled gold, now is a great time to sell the old gold pieces you no longer want and earn some extra cash.
Recycled and Fairtrade gold are the most environmentally – and people – friendly types of the precious metal you can buy.
If you’re buying gold jewellery for yourself or as a gift, it’s likely that a fair proportion of it has been recycled from other items. The beauty of gold is that it can be melted down and turned into something new repeatedly, without losing any of its value or lustre.
The other way of wearing ethically sound gold jewellery is if you buy Fairtrade gold. Just like the better-known Fairtrade coffee or chocolate, in order to be labelled as Fairtrade, the metal has to be sourced responsibly and the miners have to receive a fair wage for their work.
During the first week of October, a delegation of Peruvian miners are in Britain to promote awareness of Fairtrade gold. They’ll be speaking at events in Leicester, Bangor in Wales and Chippenham.
The visitors will also be visiting a traditional Welsh gold mine and speaking at the 2016 UK Jewellery Conference.
Kevin McCullough, head of campaigns at the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “Gold: a symbol of love, power and wealth. Look behind the glitz, and the reality is not so glamorous. Gold mining is one of the most dangerous, precarious, and unfairly treated jobs in the world.
“Fairtrade gold stops exploitation. It can be traced from the mine through the refining process. This is backed up by documentation of all the transactions between miner and licensed jewellers. It means consumers and jewellers know that fairtrade gold comes from a socially and environmentally responsible, source which has economic benefits for miners.”
Recycled gold also helps to protect the environment. Each time you sell your broken or unwanted gold jewellery, as well as receiving cash, you’re helping lessen the impact of the harmful chemicals involved in gold mining by supplying gold to meet the global demand for the precious metal.
It doesn’t seem two minutes since the August Bank Holiday but already we’re almost in October and the shops are filling up with Christmas stock.
If you’ve started to think about your Christmas shopping, you’re probably also thinking about how you’re going to fund it. This is popular time of year for selling your old, broken and unwanted pieces of gold jewellery because it gives you a bit of extra cash to spend on the festive period.
It’s worth checking your jewellery box for pieces you no long wear, whether that’s because they’re too old fashion or because they’re broken and you never will get around to having them repaired. As long as the item is solid gold – not gold plated – you’ll be able to trade it in for cash.
We also recycle old gold and silver coins and household items, but again only solid silver makes the cut. We don’t take silver plated pieces.
People choosing to recycle their unwanted gold in 2016 have been able to earn some top prices. The gold price has soared this year and that means better returns when you send in your scrap gold – but remember, the scrap gold price will always be lower than the general gold price. That reflects the fact that once an item has been accepted, it has to be weighed, processed and melted down before it can be reused.
Because we’re based in Birmingham’s world famous jewellery quarter, we can get the recycled gold out quickly to jewellers to create something new from it. One of the many benefits of gold is that it can be melted down over and over again without losing any of its value or beauty.
So if you’re looking to earn some extra cash for Christmas, have a look in your jewellery box and get recycling.
Previous Posts
Guide to Gold Melt Value: Understanding the Intrinsic Worth of Your Precious Metals
Scrap Gold Laws and Regulations in the UK: What You Need to Know
How to best negotiate a price for your scrap gold
How much is 9ct gold worth?
Can I sell broken jewellery?
What’s My Jewellery Worth?
Christmas 2023 Operating Hours
How to get the Best Price for Your Gold Jewellery
Selling Scrap Gold in the Aftermath of Her Majesty The Queen’s Passing
Business Closure for the State Funeral of Her Majesty The Queen
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