If you’ve called around to different refineries on different days or at different times of the day, you’ve probably been quoted a range of prices. You might wonder why one refiner’s price is a few dollars better or worse than another’s, or why the same refiner is offering a different quote than they did yesterday. Today, prices on the stock market change second to second, the algorithms that govern the market moving faster than the speed of human thought. The same goes for the price of precious metals. Trying to predict how prices will change moment to moment is not only difficult, it’s nearly impossible, even for veteran traders.
For pawn shops and similar businesses that deal in large quantities of precious metals, your best bet is to research gold prices and stay on top of trends, but don’t hold out for the perfect time to sell. If you try to play that game, the unpredictability of the market will win. If you sell what you have when you have it, the fractional gains and losses you experience are more likely to even out over the long run.
What Affects the Price of Precious Metals?
Assets and commodities can be bought and sold for two different prices: a spot price and a futures price. The spot price is the price you’ll pay (or receive for selling) on the spot. It’s what something is worth right now. A futures price is an agreed-upon price to pay in order to receive the asset in the future.
The spot price of precious metals is always changing. On the day of writing this blog (August 19, 2025), the price peaked at $3355.30, with a low of $3326.50, a difference of $28.80, according to kitco.com. That’s not all that much when you’re dealing in thousands of dollars. If you switch the graph to the 12-month view, you’ll see an astronomical rise in gold prices over the past few decades, with an exponential curve rising almost steadily throughout the 21st century.
Precious metals prices tend to rise in times of economic or political uncertainty. War, recessions, supply chain disruptions, social unrest, and major upheavals like war and pandemics will all affect the price of precious metals. When in uncertain times, investors take refuge in something whose value is inherent: precious metals generally, but more specifically, gold.
Seek Out Maximum Transparency
Those day-to-day, hour-to-hour fluctuations are much harder to account for. Knowing what time of day or what day of the week prices will peak is almost impossible to predict. Actual transactions aren’t always pinned to the current spot price, as businesses have to account for their own expenses.
There’s a lot of trust involved in selling your precious metals. The best thing a refiner can do is be as transparent as possible about their prices. We do that by giving you the most accurate assay possible, analyzing the fine metal content of your sample to parts per million. We’ve been in business for over 50 years and we’ve built a reputation on our accuracy and fair prices.
