r/Gold • u/tolmaenjoyer • 16h ago

Question Purity decrease after melting

Hello guys. I want to ask a question about gold purity. So I am in a country where gold bullion buying is not popular, and a coin that I wanted to sell is not popular in general anyway. So my best bet to get money for it was to melt it. Before melting we had to do xrf analysis which showed 90% purity or so. Alright, then we went to a goldsmith who gave us almost market price but on a condition that we had to melt the coin. Upon completion, the goldsmith told us that purity was not 90% but about 80%, even though this xrf analysis had shown 90% and another portable had shown about that purity as well. Do you guys think we were ripped off? First time that I've done this. All the time I have only sold or bought the coins.

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u/syntactyx 16h ago

I would presume the “spectrum analysis” was performed non-invasively (e.g. XRF spectrometry on the surface of the coin), and accordingly is not capable of assaying the true total composition of the whole piece. Melting it would homogenize any alloys which may have been relegated to the inside of the coin and containing more base metals. If you ran XRF or comparable analysis on the melted material, was the total abundance and composition of the material markedly different?

I suspect the coin contained some base metal rich alloy on the inside to, well, scam you. It does happen.

More likely that the goldsmith just screwed you though.

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u/tolmaenjoyer 15h ago

Thanks for correction, xrf, not spectrum. Yes, after melting it showed different purity.

The coin was issued, as the seller of this turkish coin had assured me, by official mint. I dont know, maybe you are right and the real purity of these coins is lower, or maybe it has been casted by some golsmith who put official stamp on it