What Is Gold Doré? A Plain-English Guide for Buyers
Gold doré (say it “doh-RAY”) is what most mines pour before any gold reaches a refinery. It is a bar of gold mixed with silver and small amounts of other metals, made right at the mine site. The word comes from the French for golden or gilded.
If you searched for doré bars, you probably want to know what they are, how pure they are, and who buys them. This guide answers all three in plain terms.
How Doré Is Made
A gold mine recovers gold from ore through crushing, grinding, and either gravity separation or chemical leaching. The gold-rich material goes into a furnace with fluxes that pull impurities into a layer of slag. Workers pour the molten metal into molds, skim the slag off the top, and let the bars cool. The result is a doré bar.
Small-scale miners follow a shorter version of the same steps. They smelt gravity concentrate with borax and pour a bar at the end.
What Is Inside a Doré Bar
Doré vs Refined Gold
Doré bars carry roughly 60 to 90 percent gold, hold a lot of silver, and have no fixed purity. A refinery must process them before the gold can trade as bullion.
Refined gold bars reach 99.5 percent gold or higher, carry a stamped purity and weight, and trade as investment bullion without more work.
Think of doré as the middle step. It sits between raw gold dust or ore and the finished bar in a bank vault.
Why Mines Make Doré Instead of Pure Gold
Refining takes specialist equipment, strict environmental controls, and a lot of capital that most mines do not have. Pouring doré on site solves three problems at once. It cuts the weight and volume a mine ships, it locks the gold into a form that is harder to steal than loose dust, and it gives the refinery a solid piece it can sample and assay.
How Refiners Price Doré
A refinery does not pay for the weight of the bar. It pays for the gold and silver inside it. The refinery assays the bar to measure gold and silver content, pays for a payable percentage of that contained metal at the spot price, and deducts a refining charge. Contract terms set the exact percentage and charge.
Here is a simple example with round numbers. A doré bar weighs 10 kilograms and assays at 80 percent gold. It holds 8 kilograms of fine gold. The refinery prices those 8 kilograms, not the full 10, and the silver content earns its own credit under the contract.
This is why an accurate assay matters so much to both sides. A one percent error on a large bar moves real money.
Who Buys Doré
Refineries buy most doré, since it is their raw material. Precious metals traders buy it to move between mines and refineries. Some industrial buyers with refining capacity buy it directly. Retail investors rarely do, because doré needs processing before it holds bullion value.
How to Buy Doré Safely
Get an independent assay. Ask for a fire assay of samples taken from several points on the bar, and send a sample to a laboratory you choose. Our guide on how to verify gold purity explains the methods.
Check the paperwork. Ask for a certificate of origin, export documentation, and a lot number that matches the bar. Our import Gold compliance guide lists what customs expects, and our certificate verification guide shows how to confirm the documents are real.r
Match the price to the assay. Price doré from its tested gold and silver content and today's spot price. A quote based on the weight of the bar alone signals a problem.
Start with a sample bar. Test one bar and review the documents before you order volume.
Doré Terms Buyers Should Know
Fine gold. The pure gold inside a bar. A 10 kilogram bar at 80 percent holds 8 kilograms of fine gold.
Assay. A laboratory test that measures how much gold and silver a bar contains.
Payable percentage. The share of the contained metal that a refinery agrees to pay for under the contract.
Refining charge. The fee a refinery deducts for turning doré into pure gold and silver.
Slag. The glassy waste that floats on top of molten metal and gets skimmed off before a bar sets.
Spot price. The current market price for immediate delivery of gold, and the base for most doré pricing.
Common Mistakes Buyers Make With Doré
Paying on weight. A quote that ignores assay results hides how much gold the buyer actually gets.
Trusting one sample point. Metals settle unevenly, so a single drill point can read higher or lower than the true average of the bar.
Skipping the origin check. Doré carries the same sourcing risks as any raw gold, and refiners and banks will ask where it came from.
Buying doré for investment. A buyer who wants bullion should buy refined bars and avoid paying for a refining step they cannot perform.
Ignoring the silver. Silver content adds value, and a buyer who reads only the gold figure leaves money on the table.
Doré Bars From Africa Aurum
We source doré bars from licensed artisanal mining operations across Africa. Each bar ships with an assay report that shows gold and silver content separately, and with origin documents tied to the batch. Refiners and traders who want to see what we supply can visit our doré bar product page or request a quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Doré still contains silver and other metals, and it needs refining to reach bullion purity of 99.5 percent or higher.
A refinery assays the bar for gold and silver content, pays a payable percentage of the contained metal at the spot price, and deducts a refining charge under the contract terms.