How I can find out when the gold is a fake or not? What is the physical process before purchase to find out its 100 procent real?

How I can find out when the gold is a fake or not? What is the physical process before purchase to find out its 100 procent real?

If you have to ask, you're better off just buying from a reputable dealer that will guarantee to purchse back the gold you buy from them. The more reputable shops have their own insignia on the gold they sell you and will be happy to buy it back without question.

Huasenghen in Bangkok is one such company as is Aurora which is found all throughout Thailand.

Hmm, coming from south pattaya, i think the gold shop on 2nd rd on the right just before central rd is the best bet in pattaya.

How I can find out when the gold is a fake or not? What is the physical process before purchase to find out its 100 procent real?

There are chemicals that gold shops uses when they are unsure of the gold, where they drop a small amount and see how it reacts, (acid tests) oftens on vintage jewellery you might see small dot in out of sight areas where the test has been performed.

still it only tells you what's on the outside, it could be gold plated items, or even stuffed with lead for density, it would be hard to tell without experience

I'll jump in,

just happened to ask the small shop inside Teco Lotus Buengkan how much they buy a baht of thai gold jewelry for...

calculator says... 18,750 b

I asked why while pointing to their electronic sign which said 20,550 sell over 20,450 buy

girl with calculator starts smiling and talking double speed, and smiling more.

She likes me? No, she's trying to BS her way to an extra large profit. I smile and walk on.

that's what's called "kha kamnet" the shop's commission, not supposed to be over 5% of the whole amount by law

I'll jump in,

just happened to ask the small shop inside Teco Lotus Buengkan how much they buy a baht of thai gold jewelry for...

calculator says... 18,750 b

I asked why while pointing to their electronic sign which said 20,550 sell over 20,450 buy

girl with calculator starts smiling and talking double speed, and smiling more.

She likes me? No, she's trying to BS her way to an extra large profit. I smile and walk on.

It's common practice for shops to give a very low buy rate for gold jewelry from another shop.

Each shop stamps their gold with their own logo.

It's best to go back to the shop you bought it from to get the full rate of the day.

If you're exchanging your gold jewelry for another they'll give you the full rate.

Give you £500

Give you £500

You can joke about it, but it's not a bad business model for Thai gold shops.

They don't really want gold from other shops so they give a bad rate. If you accept they make a good profit. I you don't, they don't care. They just don't need it. There's always a risk they take when buying gold from another shop.

This also entices customers to stick with the shop they bought the gold from.

As I said before, if you have gold jewelry from another shop, they will trade you for a new item from their shop. They will give you the going rate on a trade. You'll lose the manufacturing cost on the item you're trading, of course, and pay a new fee on the new jewelry you're purchasing. Bear in mind they will not resell used gold jewelry - it gets sent to Bangkok to be melted down to make new jewelry.

Not too long ago, when gold was in the mid 20,000's for a baht, it was going to cost me about 1000 baht to trade a 1/2 baht necklace.

OP, what was the outcome of your post?

The outcome was that I sold the chain for 36500 THB in Switzerland.

Gold shops I asked in Thailand = thieves.

Edited June 24, 201313 yr by manarak

Lots of people here, that seem to know about gold.

I just started a thread in the "Economy" etc. sub-forum under the heading "TUNGSTEN-GOLD".

Some input there from people "in the know", is very welcome.

Cheers.