THE GOLD AND SILVER BUYER'S HANDBOOK

This is a unique book of information for all those who buy or sell gold or silver, jewellery or coins. It also contains a large amount of information of use to the general antiques trader.

The book started, unknowingly, when I worked at a shop specialising in coins, medals, jewellery and bullion. From the very first day I started making lists and charts: formulae of how to calculate bullion prices quickly, lists of coins which were of value, notes about how I had mistaken non gold items for gold…the information grew and grew. The reason for this enthusiasm was simple. We advertised widely; we dealt within the trade, both locally and abroad; we saw customers who called into the shop and it was very busy, there was no time to spend minutes researching each enquiry, the answers had to be to hand.

In the shop I soon learnt that the skill in determining values was in knowing what was worthless and what was worth researching. Every day callers from around the country would telephone: had their set of medallions appreciated in value? are some gold sovereigns worth more than bullion value? how much is gold worth? To my amazement I found myself answering the same questions day after day. The answers are in this book.

Some of the information was hard to come by. Sets of commemorative medallions are beautiful but most end up in the melting pot. How much are they worth? They are worth the weight of gold or silver. How much do they weigh? Nobody knew, even the manufacturers could not tell us. So each time we broke the seals on a set of medallions we weighed them the list of weights is in this book. This book includes many other charts of weights and values as well as clear explanations of carat and hallmarks.

Upon leaving the shop I went into business on my own, manufacturing and marketing testing equipment for gold, silver and gemstones along with magnifiers and weighing scales. We manufacture the QUICKTEST and TROYTEST precious metal testers.

With the growth of the internet (which didn’t existed when I wrote the first edition of this book) came our website, www.quicktest.co.uk, and over the last few years I have written several articles in answer to customers’ questions. How do you clean silver using a simple chemical reaction rather than resorting to messy cleaners? If your weighing machine no longer gives accurate readings, how do you recalibrate it? What are the latest laws on using weighing machines for use in trade? How do you transfer money from one bank to another, for free, and know that it will arrive in two hours? What do you need to know about handling testing acids? Which are the latest electronic gold testers and how reliable are they? Now that there are so many companies offering to buy gold, where will you get the best rate? What are the pitfalls in taking credit cards? The answers are in this book.

Raffi Katz
May 2010