Besides being pretty and shiny, gold has many functions in society stemming far from its typical use as attractive jewelry. Currently, almost 50 percent of gold in the world is used in jewelry. The rest is used as investments and industrial uses such as in circuitry.

Gold has been used to back our paper currency, so when you see the value of gold rising, it is typically an indicator that our U.S. Dollar is weakening. Most importantly right now, people see gold as a flight to safety to combat rising inflation rates.

Gold value is determined by its purity, where pure gold is 24 carats (24K), 18K gold is 75 percent pure, and so on. Typical jewelry will contain 14K (58.5 percent) gold due to the fact that pure gold is too soft for every day use. The higher the purity of gold your item contains, the higher value it will yield.