GoldSmart Network ™

We often hear that gold is a “safe haven” investment in times of crisis, and yet in the recent crisis in Japan the price of gold dropped sharply, along with every other type of investment and most of the world’s currencies aside from the Yen and the US dollar. So is gold really a safe [...]

The short answer is “no” but it is worthwhile understanding why and how to be sure you are getting the most for your old gold. The first thing to understand is that there are only a handful of actual refiners in the whole world.  Gold refining is a complex process involving a huge amount of [...]

A few words from the Mission Statement of the Recycling Council of Ontario: The Recycling Council of Ontario (RCO) is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization involved in policy, education and project work around the issues of consumption, waste generation, reduction and diversion, and recycling. The RCO believes that society must minimize its impact on the environment [...]

There has been a lot of social and political pressure for fair trade products including coffee, chocolate and diamonds.  I think we all feel a responsibility to support products that have been placed into the market place using safe and ethical practices and without abuse of child labour laws.  The fact is that mined gold [...]

A question people often wonder about is “Where does all the old gold go?” Unlike many commodities such as oil, which are used up when they are consumed, gold is basically timeless.  There is an old saying that no one ever deliberately threw gold away.  Gold is naturally hoarded because of its intrinsic and enduring [...]

Beware of Greenwashing in the gold business… Greenwashing is the practice by any business, in any industry, of dressing up in an “environmentally friendly” image when the reality is that their business is no more environmentally responsible than any other business. In the gold business there are companies that present an image that they are [...]