Read the purity and the grams, then choose a signed bill, a framed bar, a coin or a chain
Before anything else, find the metal and the grams on the listing. Together they tell you how much gold is in the piece. For plain gold, start with a signed bill of pure gold. The one-gram bill was bought most here, about six pieces in every ten sold. A bar or coin set in a frame weighs more than the gold inside it, so ask us what the frame is made of.
Gold bills: 1 gram, 5 gram and 10 gram 24K gold bars
The bills are the plainest gold here. Each Trax Currency bill is a signed, solid strip of pure 24K gold, .999 fine. It comes in one, five or ten grams, and TraxNYC guarantees the grams on each one. Nothing else adds to the weight, so the grams on the listing are all gold.
Purity: 24K, 22K, .999 and .9999 gold marks
The purity mark says how much of the metal is gold. On 24K it reads .999, which means 99.9 percent. PAMP Suisse bars are finer still, at .9999. On 22K a mark, where there is one, reads 916, a little under 92 percent. Most pieces are 24K or 22K by the metal line, but not all of them, so read that line every time. Where a coin or bar sits in a lower-karat frame, ask us which karat the center is. Pure gold is yellow only, so ask about any 24K listing that shows white or rose.
Weight: grams, troy ounces and what the frame adds
Coins and big bars go by the troy ounce, 31.1 grams, and small bars and bills by the gram. The grams on a listing weigh the whole piece, frame and stones in. A framed PAMP ounce here weighs about 37 to 65 grams, and a real bar inside still holds one ounce of gold. Compare the bar or coin first, the frame second. One listing is the 14K frame alone, for a 1-ounce bar you already have. Another is a 14K pendant shaped like a bar, not a bar of pure gold, so ask us whether a real bar sits inside before you order.
Bars and coins: PAMP Suisse bar pendants and gold coin pendants
A PAMP Suisse bar is struck with its weight, its fineness and a serial number. Ask us whether the frame leaves that side open to read. The coins here run from a tenth of an ounce up to two ounces. Four Liberty coins sit in plain frames, and their listings disagree on the coin's karat, so ask which coin and which year sits in the frame. Three 50 pesos coins sit in diamond frames. A 50 pesos coin holds 37.5 grams of gold, a little more than an ounce.
Heavy gold: solid 22K gold chains, 24K gold pendants and kilo pieces
Five solid 22K chains run from 105 to 250 grams. They are 5.5 to 15.3 mm wide. They hang 22 to 28 inches. 22K is softer than the gold in most chains, so a heavy link shows marks sooner and should come off for the gym. About a dozen pendants are figures in 22K or 24K, from a Medusa head to a Pikachu. Five pieces weigh over a kilo each, from a four-finger ring to a gold banana. Two 24K snakes are made to be shaped into a ring, a bracelet or a pendant. Text the desk for more pictures of any of them before you buy.