Kansas City Metro · Lenexa, KS
How the Gold and Silver Market Works
The 'market price' is the price for one troy ounce of pure gold, silver, or platinum for immediate delivery on the global market. Every legitimate precious-metal buyer prices offers off market. Here's what it is, where it comes from, and why it matters when you sell.
Where the current market comes from
The wholesale precious-metals market is set continuously on global exchanges — the London Bullion Market, COMEX in New York, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Trading runs 23 hours a day, five days a week. Prices quoted on Kitco, gold-api.com, or Bloomberg reflect that global consensus, updated every few seconds.
Why market moves
The market responds to interest rates, inflation expectations, currency strength (especially the US dollar), geopolitical events, central-bank buying, and industrial demand. Gold tends to rise when the dollar weakens or during economic uncertainty. Silver moves with gold but also with industrial demand (solar panels, electronics), which makes it more volatile.
How the market translates to a buyer's offer
The wholesale market is the reference rate for pure, refined metal. What a buyer can offer depends on the item. Recognized bullion is straightforward to resell. Jewelry, dental gold, and karat scrap have to be sorted, melted, assayed, and refined before the pure metal is recovered — those refining and processing costs sit between raw metal value and any buyer's offer.
Troy ounces vs. regular ounces
Precious metals are always weighed in troy ounces, not the avoirdupois (regular) ounces you'd use for groceries. One troy ounce = 31.1 grams. One regular ounce = 28.35 grams. If you weigh gold on a kitchen scale set to ounces, you'll get a different (larger) number than the troy weight the dealer uses. Always convert grams to troy ounces for gold and silver math: grams ÷ 31.1 = troy ounces.
Why quotes differ between dealers on the same day
The wholesale market is global — any dealer telling you it's different at their shop is misinforming you. Where dealers differ is in how they build their offer against that market: overhead, refining relationships, processing costs, and how efficiently they can turn your item back into resalable metal all factor in. Get a written quote and compare.
How to track market yourself
Free current market on Kitco (kitco.com), gold-api.com, GoldPrice.org, and Bloomberg. Our homepage shows current market updated throughout the day. Checking market before you walk in is a great sanity check — you'll know roughly what your bullion is worth before hearing any quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the market price include a dealer's markup?
No. The market price is the wholesale reference for pure refined metal. Every dealer buys below it and sells above it to cover costs and stay in business.
Will a dealer pay the full market price?
No — the market price is a wholesale reference for pure refined metal, not a retail buy-back rate. Recognized bullion is the most straightforward to evaluate; jewelry and scrap involve real refining and processing costs between raw metal value and any buyer's offer.
Which is more volatile — gold or silver?
Silver, by a wide margin. Silver has heavy industrial demand alongside investment demand, so its price swings faster than gold.
Does the shop lock in a market price for me?
Yes — the price we quote you is honored for that day. If you take a written quote home and come back the same business day, the price we quoted is what we pay.
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