Neww Guy With A Couple Of Gold Questions

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bubbat New Member United States 18 Posts	Posted 02/11/2013 07:09 am Hi guys, I'm one of the new ones around here and have a couple of questions in the gold area. I went into my stash the other day and pulled out all the out of sight and out of mind stuff I have accumulated. I began my research mainly on my silver coins on the internet just to see what I have. Well, I kind of got conflicting info and thought I would go to a few local dealers and feel them out knowing they would low ball me and try to outright try steal what I had. Like I told them in another section I might have been born at night, but it wasn't last night. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised. While I was at it, not having any gold coins, I did have 3 class rings and a couple of watches too that I just wanted to see what kind of smoke they would blow on them. I only showed them at one shop and that was enough. The lady tried to tell me they weren't worth much, which I knew was a down right lie. I informed her that 8 to 10 years ago I drove 3 hrs to hand deliver my college class ring to the Herff Jones rep. to have it sent off for resizing. I was informed at that time that a ring like it cost between $400 & $500 then. Her response was, "oh, really". I can't type what I thought at the moment, so I immediately dropped the discussion on them. Saturday I took the three and got out a postage scale I have and weighed them. Then I found a calculator online. Gross weigh with the stones they came out to about $893 minus the stone weight. Do these people think everyone just crawled out from under a rock? I quit wearing my college ring years ago after I started that middle age growing spurt and due to the fact I do things everyday that could leave me with no fingers to wear it on if I forgot to remove it. Also, at this point in life they have no sentimental value to me anymore and I can't take them with me and I might just sell them one day. Any suggestions on that? I saw on TV last night where the local station is going to have a report this week on the Gold Rush or whatever they are calling the special report. I intend to watch it just to see what is going on locally. Now I have a little question too on gold coins I'm just curious about. I couldn't find a denomination discussion on them. I had read the story a while back about the lady in Pennsylvania that had found the 1933 $20 Double Eagle coin in a box that her father had after he died. I recall she messed up and took it to the Philadelphia mint and they confiscated it. Since I got here the other day I Googled the Double Eagles and just read the Wikipedia info. I learned a little there. I believe, going on recall, there are two somewhere in the government's possession for display purposes. The article on the lady had said they believed that only 2 had escaped the melt down and she apparently had third one they didn't know about. Then, I learned in the Wikipedia info that there was an employee that had stolen some and at one point 20 had been recover so far, until the lady showed up with the one she had. All this brought back a memory from 1979. I was in a company school with about 30 guys and a couple of them were from South America. One of the guys was from Columbia. He and I became pretty good friends in those two weeks. One day we were sitting around on a break or something and he said I've got something I want to show you. He pulled out his wallet and produced a piece of folded tissue paper. He started unfolding it and had a US $20 gold piece his grandfather had given him. I was totally ignorant on coins, but I knew it was rare for sure. It was in mint condition. My first question to him was, "man what are you doing carrying that around in your wallet?" I don't remember his response. It might have just been an American gold coin to him or possibly he was going to try and sell it while in the US. I don't know. Now, I wonder if it could have been one of the 1933 Double Eagles. What could it have been? I â€˜ve been curious after recalling him showing it to me. Report this Post to the Staff

mds308 Pillar of the Community United States 1721 Posts	Posted 02/11/2013 07:45 am Your kind of all over the map. I'll address the gold class ring portion. Class rings are usually 10K but some people opt for the 14K ring. Rarely do I see 18K but they do get purchased. Class rings are ridiculously overpriced. Men's rings usually fall into the 20 gram range. The stones weigh around .9 - 1.1 grams. I know this because I have removed hundreds (I own a pawn shop). I get approximately 20 dollars per gram on 10K. So at 20 grams x 20 dollars would be 400 dollars for a men's class ring (give or take due to weight and gold prices). The 400 dollars would be what a dealer may get, not what a dealer would pay. A postage scale is not used for weighing precious metals which are weighed in troy ounces, not postal ounces. Today, a class ring could set you back 800 - 1200 dollars. Just because you pay too much does not make it worth as much. It's only worth what somebody is willing to pay. There are class rings that will bring much more than gold value. These include military academy rings like the Naval Academy, West Point, Citadel, VMI plus others like MIT, FBI, Boy Scouts, WAVES, and many more. About 10 years ago I sold a VMI Rat Ring (sterling silver) for around 200 dollars. At that time the ring only had about 15 dollars in silver. I doubt a gold double eagle carried in a wallet would grade mint condition. I guess it is possible. I also would doubt it was from 1933. Edited by mds308 02/11/2013 07:49 am Report this Post to the Staff
denco7 Pillar of the Community United States 2543 Posts	Posted 02/11/2013 08:34 am When people are just learning about precious metals, they just assume that gold is gold and silver is silver. Pure Gold .9999(Buffalos)are 24 Karat, .999 Gold {AGEagles} are 22 Karat. People think if they have 2 ounces of gold jewelry it is 2 ounces of gold. Not if it is 10 Karat gold, 10 parts gold to 14 parts alloy, less than half of it is gold. While there are many disreputable gold dealers, a good part of people's dissatisfaction has to do with not understanding what they are showing the dealer. Gold double Eagles were minted from 1849 to 1933. So what you remember is most likely a Double Eagle in that date range. All the Eagles minted in 1933 were never released and melted down. There are , I believe 11 known and thought to be 20 that were stolen from the mint before the melt. Hence, since none ( perhaps one ) that were legally released, they all legally belong to the gov't Report this Post to the Staff
NathanASE Pillar of the Community United States 1511 Posts	Posted 02/11/2013 1:15 pm I'm assuming you used one of the jewelry calculators online that you put the kt of gold into? There's a really good scrap jewelery calculator you put the weight in grams and gold/silver etc purity (ex- 10kt, 14kt or 92.5 for silver chains etc) in and it gives you today's value according to today's gold/silver price. Of corse if the scale you used doesn't have an option for Troy ounces you need to convert it unless you use the one I'm talking about that uses grams and converts it for you.. I'd put the link to it but not sure if its allowed... I know when I sold my 10kt class ring it was (at the time, last fall) just over $400 in straight gold weight.. I traded it in for some coins for around $360... I brought it to a few places and some were offering rediculiously low prices... I shopped around until finding a decent offer.. And now they get all my scrap jewelry... You'll always get less than its worth in weight from a dealer, as they have to make something off it... But if you shop around you can get a decent deal, just know what you have. Here's the link to the jewelry calculator I use.. It's the best I've found.. I hope this is allowed.. Lol. http://gold.yabz.com/jewelry.htm With the $20 eagles.. I guess your friend could have had one but its doubtful. Didn't that family find 10 of them in the deposit box? And they were taken when they brought them to the mint to check for authenticity? I very we'll could be wrong but I was very loosely following the trial when they tried to fight it in court and I could have sworn it was 10 of them, actually I'm almost sure it was 10.... And obviously they lost the trial... Edit*- ya it was 10 they found, around $80million worth.. Here's the link to my general google search, you can read the story from whichever site you like better.. https://www.google.com/search?q=10+...lient=safari Edited by NathanASE 02/11/2013 1:22 pm Report this Post to the Staff
bubbat New Member United States 18 Posts	Posted 02/13/2013 6:05 pm Thanks guys. I meant to get back sooner, but I had a calamity with my keyboard. A large glass of iced tea doesn't do any good when dumped on the old keyboard. Sorry if I rambled I have a tendency to do that. I just try to paint a clear picture. I'm by no means an artist. The postal scale was all I had and it does have a gram option and that's what I used and the calculator went by. I was more or less trying to prove to myself what crooks are out there and that I had come across one. The one I showed the two rings to pretty much tried to imply they were worth nothing and I knew that was not true. I also understand the 10K, 14K, 18k and 24K. These particular rings were 10K and for now I just wanted a ballpark figure. Although I don't dabble with this, I do keep and eye and ear to what the markets are doing. I never even looked I just knew that gold was at an all time high and silver was up there too. I'm going to watch the TV show tonight I told y'all about . I had it wrong. They titled it "The Business of Gold". Anyway, it will be interesting. To the gold $20 coin I saw so many yers ago, 34 to be exact. I didn't paint the whole picture. This guy was American educated from Columbia, South America and if I recall was an engineer. I also worked with other South American engineers and all came from affluent families. The average Joe/Jose doesn't become an engineer, let alone, an American educated engineer unless they come from money. This guy was my age so my guessing is that his affluent grandfather would have been middle aged back when the Double Eagle deal went down and I thought he might have possibly come to the US too and acquired the coin while here. I guess one could have gotten funneled to Columbia and he acquired it there. Now, in my little research I have come to the conclusion that they really don't know how many got away. That's why I was wondering about the coin I saw. I, in my untrained description, called it mint. Sorry, but I'll tell you this, it was in perfect condition, didn't have a scratch on it and shinned like a new penny. That's why I slipped and said mint condition and it probably came from some form of safe in Columbia to the US in the guy's wallet. He might have intended to sell it while he was here. By no means had it been in his wallet for a long time prior to coming to the US, I wouldn't think. I was just wondering what the guy might have had and the Double Eagle deal was still in my cluttered memory bank. It was in deed a US $20 denomination from what era I don't know. At the time I was in my twenties and was clueless about coins other than the old ones I would run across in change back then every now and then. Had we had the internet way back then I would have researched it, but we didn't. Thanks for all the info. Bryan Report this Post to the Staff
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