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Option statistics are published daily in the pages of the finacial press.  On June 30, for example, the August 380 calls with less than 2 weeks until expiry closed at $3.90; the September 380s with 6 weeks until expiry closed at $10.20, while the October 380s with 11 weeks to expiry closed at $12.80.
Note particularly the row entry starting with the strike price of 380. Since the August future has closed at 379.1, the August 380 option is trading very close to the money. Put and call options trading close to the money will command very similar prices. Indeed, when a future trades exactly at a strike price, the puts and calls at that strike must trade at exactly equal prices. Precisely why this equality has to prevail will be illustrated in the next series of posts.
Option values also increase with increasing market volatility. As of June 30, 1993, the gold market was the most volatile it had been in a year, the futures having risen $60.00 in less than 3 months. At that time, the 5-week at-the-money option was trading at $10.00. In early 1993, with gold in the doldrums, a similar 5-week option was trading at less than half this amount.
Option values are ultimately determined by the free interplay of supply and demand in the marketplace. A number of advisory services claim to be able to identify overvalued and undervalued option prices. If an option were obviously undervalued, it would obviously be worth buying, and buyers would quickly force the price up into some kind of equilibrium with other options having similar risk-reward characteristics. Similarly, if an option were obviously overvalued, it would clearly attract a lot of option writers on purely technical grounds. In practice, things are never that clear.