Buying gold - Important to know!

You must have noticed that in most Croatian cities there are branches for the Buyback of gold practically on every corner. Often there are several of them within a radius of only a hundred meters. But have you ever wondered how it is possible that all these proverbs can survive? How much gold do they have to buy to make it profitable for them to buy gold?

Unfortunately, many of these branches do not buy a lot of gold, but buy it at such a bad price that they make a big profit even on a small amount of gold. 

Many times we heard from clients that other gold buyers offered them twice the price we did. For example, you could get only one thousand euros for your gold from some buyers, but we buy it for 2 thousand euros.

Why do people agree to such low purchase prices for gold?

It's about lack of information. In contrast to the former exchange of euros and kuna at the exchange office, where practically everyone knew the fair exchange rate and that, for example, 600 kn for 100 euros would be too little, most people do not know what the fair price of gold is. This is understandable, because most people rarely encounter the need to sell gold. 

Furthermore, many people do not know what they mean fuck and exactly how much more gold does 18 carat contain than 14 carat gold. Try asking your family, friends or colleagues if a gram of gold is worth 20, 50 or 70 euros? Most of them probably won't know the answer. 

Gold buyers are well aware of this lack of information and exploit it to the maximum.

Many gold sellers, especially older people who do not know how to use the Internet, will take their gold to the first gold buying office they see on the road and agree to whatever price the buyer offers them. If only they were better informed, in many situations they would get several hundred euros more for their gold.

For such a difference in price, it is worthwhile for people to come to our branch in Zagrebeven from Dubrovnik, Pula or Vukovar.

Why can we offer the best price for purchasing gold in Croatia?

Most buyers send all purchased gold, including gold coins and gold bars, to refineries and gold mints for processing. At the same time, they get a price from the refineries that is several percent lower than the stock exchange price gold prices. 

Refineries then melt the collected gold, purify it and use it to make gold bars and gold coins, which they sell a few percent above the stock market price of gold. The price difference of a few percent makes up their income and serves to finance the operations of refineries and gold mints.

Unlike the street buyers who send all the gold for processing, we at centarzlata.com the primary activity is the sale of gold bars and gold coins, and their selling price is always slightly higher than the stock market price of gold. 

Since such a business model allows us to sell gold at a slightly higher price than the one offered by the refineries broken gold, when buying gold from clients, we can offer the highest price in Croatia, especially when it comes to buying ducats, other gold coins and gold bars.

What else is important when buying gold bars?

Bars from different manufacturers fetch different prices when purchased. In our area, the most valued are Swiss, German and Austrian bars from reputable manufacturers such as Argor of Heraeus. Just such bars make up the vast majority of our offer of investment gold. 

One of the reasons to trust such bullion is the LBMA listing. It is a list of gold mints that meet the requirements of the association of traders in the London bullion market, which is the largest and most important in the world. 

In order to facilitate the trading of gold bars on the London market, the participants have drawn up a list of smelters that meet very strict conditions for the production of bars, which is verified by very rigorous inspections. 

Mints that are eligible and wish to be members of the LMBA are located at this list and their bars certainly contain as much gold as stated. For example, if Argor's bullion says that it is made of gold purity 99,99%, buyers do not have to worry about whether the real purity is 99,4%, 98,9% or if it is really four nines.

Therefore, ingots made from smelters on the LBMA Good delivery list usually fetch a better price when purchased than ingots from other manufacturers. 

However, many of the mints on that list are located in Turkey, Russia, China, Indonesia and other countries that do not have a good reputation in our area, such as Switzerland or Germany. 

On several occasions, we bought bars made in Turkey and other countries. At any quality check, such bars would be identical to bars made in Switzerland, but later it would be much more difficult to sell such bars. 

Among our clients, there is simply a lack of trust in "Turkish gold". The only way to sell such gold is to offer it cheaper than Swiss gold. 

Since we sell such gold at a certain discount, we also buy such gold bars at a slightly lower price than the price we can offer for example Argor Heraeus or Heimerle + Meule levers. But as a rule, it is not a difference of more than a few percent.

Another factor in determining the value of a gold bar is its physical condition. If the bullion is scratched or comes in plastic packaging, and that packaging is damaged or is no longer there, we will also buy such gold at a slightly lower price than buying gold bars in excellent condition. 

The reason is the same as mentioned above – no one wants to buy an undamaged and a damaged lever at the same price. We sell damaged bullion at a discount, therefore we buy gold in such condition at a slightly lower price. 

Purchase of ducats and other gold coins

Because every month we sell hundreds of Franc Jozef ducats and other gold coins produced by Austrian coin, we are always ready to buy them from clients. At the same time, we are able to offer a higher purchase price than other buyers, who unfortunately buy them as scrap gold in the form of jewelry and send it to be melted down in gold refineries.

We are also able to buy contemporary gold coins such as those of the Vienna Philharmonic at the highest prices in Croatia. See the purchase prices of all the most common gold coins in our area at this page.

If the gold coin is scratched, punctured, bent or damaged in other ways, the purchase price will be lower than the gold coin in good condition.

Buyback of gold jewelry

When it comes to the purchase of jewelry, clients sometimes emphasize to us in a call related to the Buyback of gold that in their case it is not about broken gold but about an undamaged piece of jewelry. 

Unfortunately, when buying jewelry, it does not matter if the necklace, bracelet or earring is damaged or not. Namely, used jewelry is very difficult to sell, so buyers always send it to be melted down in gold refineries. 

In addition, in the redemption process, redeemers must zagrebcut or cut a piece of jewelry in several places in order to be sure that it is real gold. Damage and impurities on the surface of the jewelry do not affect the purchase price of broken gold.

You can watch a video of gold being tested with acids during purchase at to our YouTube channel.

What do the 585 and 750 gold marks on jewelry represent?

It is made with gold purity marks. Mark 585 on a piece of gold jewelry means that the item contains 58,5% gold, and the rest are some other metals. Such gold is also called 14 carat gold.

The second most common mark of gold is 750, which represents 18 carat gold, which contains 75% of gold. Due to the higher purity of gold, the price of 750 gold is higher than the price of 585 gold.

See the table for the other most common carats of gold.

If you have any questions related to buying gold, feel free to contact us via email [email protected], phone number 098 888 155. You can also come for a free appraisal of your gold. Our office is located at Savska cesta 41, Zagreb (office building Zagrepčanka, 11th floor).

Author

centarzlata.com

Notes:

1. Every reference on this page to "Centar Zlata" refers to the company Saiva doo
2. The texts on centarzlata.com serve exclusively to inform and educate about financial and precious metal markets and should not be considered as investment advice.