The astonishing run for the gold price has become household news this year, with non-investors now keenly aware of the trend.
This has sparked some interesting behaviour among Aussies who don't typically pay much attention to the share market.
Office workers are spending several thousand dollars buying gold bars and bullion from city dealers in their lunch breaks.
Meanwhile, non-investors are raiding their cupboards and flocking to retail jewellery stores to sell off their gold jewellery.
Aussies are offloading unwanted inherited items, broken pieces, and old wedding rings to cash in on the record-high gold price.
Master craftsman Nick Ireland, a leading East Coast jeweller with more than 30 years' experience, is seeing the trend first-hand.
In an interview with The Fool, Ireland said a steady stream of customers is coming into his studios in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane to sell their gold jewellery.
Ireland said customers are "pleasantly surprised" by what their gold jewellery is worth — even if it's broken.
This month, Ireland paid a customer $1,440 for an 18-carat gold wedding ring that he said would have been worth $692 two years ago.
He also bought a 9-carat gold chain from a client for $700, up from the $310 he would have paid at this time in 2023.
Ireland commented:
Gold has never in its history been so high, so yes, now is a great time to sell.
Interested in doing the same?
Here's the process.
Image source: Getty Images
Want to sell your gold jewellery?
Ireland said selling gold jewellery is quite a straightforward process for the customer.
The master craftsman explained:
We will test and see what carat it is, then weigh the pieces to work out how much we can offer them.
Gold bullion companies have a sell and buy price on new gold which differs by a few percentage points, sell obviously being the more expensive.
When it comes to old, used jewellery the buy-back price is a few more percentage points less again, depending on the carat of gold and the piece of jewellery.
Ireland told us that some customers aren't looking to sell, but instead, are requesting he refashion old gold jewellery into modern designs.
If a customer wants to refashion their gold jewellery, the process is a bit different.
Ireland explains:
When it comes to redesign or remodel, often the client has pictures of pieces they have seen either in magazines or online. Often, there are stones in the existing jewellery they would like to use.
So first, we weigh and carat test the gold so we can let them know what the value is for a credit, or how much gold we have for the redesign. Secondly, we remove all the stones and measure accurately.
Then we design the piece accordingly around the stones and the gold provided, adding gold if we need to.
We then show the client designs of what is possible using their stones and gold, alter designs slightly if need be, then go ahead and make the piece.
What's going on with the gold price?
The gold price ripped to an all-time record high of US$4,379.60 per ounce (that's $6,675 in Aussie dollars) earlier this month.
That represented an incredible 66% skyrocketing in the year to date, and that came after a 27% surge over the 2024 calendar year, too.
Strong ongoing gold purchases by central banks around the world kicked off the two-year gold price run.
Top global broker Goldman Sachs expects the trend to continue and tips the gold price to reach US$4,900 per ounce by December 2026.
Investors in ASX gold shares have done extremely well.
The S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index (ASX: XGD), which tracks a basket of ASX gold shares, is up 106% since the start of 2024.
But market exuberance hit a wall on 22 October when the gold price plunged by more than 6% in a single trading session.
That was the largest fall in more than 12 years, likely due to investors making the call to take profits after a magnificent two-year run.
The gold price is trading at US$4,010 per ounce on Tuesday, representing a 53% gain in the year to date.
Is it too late to buy ASX gold shares? Find out here.
