Gold: the ultimate recyclable
  
Gold, that most precious of metals, has been receiving a lot of attention today with its record-setting prices over the past year.  Who would have ever believed that gold could be priced at more than $1000 per ounce?

 

While it is the strictly monetary value which has been the main subject of the news, there is much much more to man's fascination with this beautiful, useful and valuable metal.  Gold is extraordinarily malleable and can be drawn and formed into many different shapes; it is a pure metal, showing no oxidation even after resting on the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years; it has many uses in technology and industry; and it is beautiful.

 

What I find the most intriguing is that it can be recycled over and over again.  Gold jewelry does not have to come from mines; much of it comes from existing jewelry.  Once an item of gold jewelry is no longer being worn, it is not simply thrown away.  It is normally sold or traded in, refined once again, and made into something else.  When you think about it, the gold in your ring or earrings could be made up of gold which came from Cleopatra's jewelry, or an ancient Roman coin, or a royal Indian treasure.  Doesn't that add a bit of romance to your favorite piece of gold jewelry, to think that it may be partially formed from gold from a nugget from the original 49er's strike?  Or that originally graced the finger of one of America's first colonial residents?  Or it could have come from the scrap on the floor of Cellini's workshop in Renaissance Florence, or a leftover bit from an Inca goldsmith.

 

This is something I think about every time we take in gold from a client, whether we are buying pieces they no longer use or are taking it in on trade.  Who knows where it originated?

 

Add your own history to a piece of gold jewelry this holiday season.