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Precious metals: gold, silver, platinum group metals. There are several ways to invest in precious metals and many reasons why investors should consider investment in some form of gold and or silver.

Do not despair, it can be made simple for you to operate at a basic level, besides only sophisticated investors and day traders need concern themselves with many of these aspects. We aim to cater for all levels of investor and trader.


Note : Important internal page links
Stock quotes, financials & charts - gold stock quotes (Silver & PGM section also)
Important Investment Services Links
Physical gold and silver
Gold nuggets
Share trading (this page also links to Technical and Fundamental analysis pages)
Currency converter - all currencies


Gold Oz recommends investor education in this field through articles, books and web based resources. Broad topics need to be covered within a quality education on this subject such as; the historical monetary role of gold and silver, fiat currencies and modern banking, other uses of precious metals, investment options and specific data on these various investment choices. We will be adding content to this page and attaching pages of content to this essential investor resource in the near future.

The various options one can choose to invest in gold or silver include bullion (bars), nuggets, jewellery, coins, EFT's, hedge funds, managed funds, mining shares, convertable notes, options, warrants and futures. Of course there are a number of issues related to each method of precious metal investment which needs to be covered.

Individual advice for each and every investor also needs to be considered / sought to take in individual needs, investment strategy and risk tolerance. Within the mining industry and direct investment in this sub sector there are many facets which include the classifications of shares and companies, a basic understanding of project economics, geology, sovereign risk, capital raising, management and the fundamentals of company financial health.

Then there is the popular subject of charting through technical analysis which can also be applied to other investment vehicles to gauge possible price direction and market strength. Click on the link at the bottom of this page for this new section of the site.

Some aspects of investor education are covered within the mining education page which is recommended viewing on this site. Here we intend to provide a coverage of Australian mining and related topics in particular. A link is provided on this page and can be found on the tool bar above for your convenience. Gold Oz products that provide data services to assist investors who may lack the time to research thoroughly are available on the Gold Oz store page within this site.


Some helpful gold and silver facts + key weights and measures

Gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals are natural chemical elements. Despite mans efforts through time they cannot be manufactured - they are rare in the earths crust (the average concentration of gold in the Earth's crust is around 0.005 parts per million) and rare in mined form above ground.

All the gold ever mined has been estimated to be between 150,000 and 160,000 tonnes which is only enough to create a solid cube 22 metres along each side. I personally believe the figure may be more than twice that figure because records have been incomplete and are only for modern times.

Gold's chemical symbol is Au - an abbriviation of Aurum which is the Latin word for gold.

Silver's chemical symbol is Ag - an abbriviation of the Latin word Argentum. The name for the element silver was derived from "seolfur" meaning silver from old english anglo-s.axon.

Gold has a melting point of 1064 degrees centigrade and a boiling point of 2808 degrees centigrade. The melting point of silver is 961.93 degrees Celsius.

Silver is harder than gold, but softer than copper.

Troy ounces and grams are commonly used to measure precious metals. You may even find reference to grains (currency), pennyweight or avoirdupois ounce / pound so here are some helpful conversion facts.

Resource statements by mining companies generally refer to grams or Troy ounces per ton of ore when reporting on platinum group metals, gold or silver content.

1 gram = 15.4324 grains
1 gram = 0.03215 troy ounces
1 gram = 0.643 pennyweights

31.10348 grams = 1 troy ounce
1.55517 grams = 1 pennyweight
28.3495 grams = 1 avoirdupois ounce

1 kilogram = 32.15076 troy ounces
1 pennyweight = 24 grains
1 pennyweight = 0.05 troy ounces
20 pennyweights = 1 troy ounce

14.583 troy ounces = 1 avoirdupois pound
1 troy ounce = 1.09714 avoirdupois ounce

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