Gold has soared to record highs. Now, in these tough economic times, many consumers are wondering how to sell their gold. When you want to sell gold, whether it is old, broken, and unwanted jewelry or gold coins and bullion, there is one important rule of thumb: an educated consumer is a smart consumer.

If you are selling old gold jewelry, much of the retail price takes into account the specific piece's artistic design and the retail price usually reflects a 300-400% markup relative to the cost of the actual materials. In the scrap gold market, the items sold at some discount to the actual gold value usually anywhere from 20-50% depending on how you sell your gold. The leading gold buyer pays up to 80% for all that old jewelry gathering dust on your dresser. There a few steps sell gold safely and securely. First, pure gold is 24 karats and based on one troy ounce, which consists of 31.1 grams or 20 pennyweights. One pennyweight is equal to 1.555 grams. Because gold is a very soft metal, almost all jewelry contains less than 24 karats of gold. In order to determine how much pure gold are in the item you need divide the karat quality of the gold by 24. Most gold jewelry sold in the United States is in the form of 18k karat, 14 karat, or 10-karat gold. 18-karat gold is 75% pure, 14 karat is 58.3% pure, and 10k gold is 41.7% pure. There should be a karat stamp somewhere on the piece of jewelry. One thing to note is that unlike, most gold buyers do not pay for diamonds so make sure that you deal with a gold buyer who will pay for any diamonds your items contain, or will remove them and send them back to you. Diamonds weighing less than 1 carat are of lesser quality and have a very limited resale value, and diamonds with a GIA certificate are worth a small premium to those without. Prices changing daily based on the London PM Gold Fix. Typically, in order to refine and assay a piece, there is a 10-20% discount on the gold price in addition to the cost of providing a safe, convenient service.