Step 1: Know what you actually have
Most of the money lost when selling gold is lost before the first offer is made, because the seller does not know what is on the table. Lay everything out and separate it into three piles: bullion (bars and investment coins such as Krugerrands, Maple Leafs, Britannias or Sovereigns), hallmarked jewelry, and unmarked or doubtful items. Each pile is priced differently, and mixing them gives the buyer room to average everything down.
Inside the jewelry pile, sort again by karat. Look for a stamp on the clasp, inside a ring band or on a small tag near the clasp of a chain. The usual marks are 375 or 9k, 417 or 10k, 585 or 14k, 750 or 18k, 875 or 21k, 916 or 22k and 999 or 24k. Our hallmark guide shows what each mark means and which ones are only plating marks such as GP, GF, HGE or RGP.
Step 2: Weigh in grams, not by eye
Buyers pay by weight, so a scale that is off by a gram can cost you real money on 18k or 22k gold. Use a digital scale with 0.01 g resolution if you can; jewelry scales are cheap and far more accurate than kitchen scales. Weigh each karat group separately and write the result down. Remove stones, pearls, steel springs and any non-gold parts if possible, or note them so that you can ask the buyer to deduct only their real weight.
If you are used to other units, remember that one troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, one tola is 11.6638 grams and one tael (Hong Kong) is 37.429 grams. The weight converters switch between them instantly.
Step 3: Calculate the melt value
Melt value is the value of the pure gold your items contain at today's price. The formula is simple: weight in grams × purity × price per gram of pure gold. For example, 20 grams of 14k gold contain 20 × 0.585 = 11.7 grams of pure gold. Multiply that by the live 24k price per gram and you have the melt value before any buyer's margin.
You do not have to do this by hand. Enter each karat group into the scrap gold calculator and it adds the lots together using the live price in your currency. For single karats you can also open the per-karat pages, for example the 14k gold price per gram or the 22k gold price per gram.
Step 4: Decide what kind of buyer to use
Different buyers serve different items. Bullion dealers pay the most for coins and bars because they can resell them almost immediately; their buy price is usually 1–5% below spot. Refiners and specialist scrap buyers pay well for broken jewelry and dental gold, often 85–95% of melt for larger lots. Jewelers may pay more than melt for branded or antique pieces that they can resell as they are, but often pay less for ordinary scrap.
Pawnshops and high-street cash-for-gold shops are convenient and fast, but they carry the highest overheads and risk, so their offers typically land between 50% and 80% of melt value. Mail-in services can be competitive, but only use ones that publish their payout percentage, insure the parcel and return items free of charge if you reject the offer. Read how pawnshops price gold before walking in.
Step 5: Get several offers and compare them properly
Ask each buyer three questions: what karat do you believe each item is, what weight did you record, and what price per gram are you paying for each karat. A buyer who will only quote a single lump sum for everything is hiding the parts of the calculation where the margin sits. Write the answers down and compare them with your own melt value.
Convert every offer to a percentage of melt value. If your 18k bracelet has a melt value of 1,000 in your currency and one shop offers 720 while another offers 880, the difference is 16 percentage points. On larger lots that gap is often worth a second trip. Check the price at the time of each offer too, because the gold price can move by 1–2% in a single day; the live gold price and today's karat prices are the neutral reference.
Step 6: Watch for common traps
The most common ways sellers are underpaid are easy to spot once you know them:
- Weighing in pennyweight (dwt) or troy ounces and quoting a per-gram price, which makes the numbers hard to compare. One pennyweight is 1.555 grams.
- Grading everything at the lowest karat in the pile instead of testing each item.
- Large deductions for 'solder', clasps or stones without weighing them.
- A good per-gram headline price combined with a high fixed fee or an assay charge.
- Pressure to sell immediately. A fair offer will still be fair tomorrow, give or take the market move.
Taxes and paperwork
Rules differ by country, so treat this as a starting point rather than advice. In many countries the sale of personal jewelry is tax-free below a certain gain, while investment gold may be subject to capital gains tax if you sell at a profit. Within the European Union, investment gold bars and most bullion coins are exempt from VAT when bought, but jewelry is not. In the UK, UK-issued legal tender coins such as Sovereigns and Britannias are free of capital gains tax for individuals. In India, physical gold held for longer than the qualifying period is taxed as a long-term capital gain. Keep purchase receipts if you have them, and expect reputable buyers to ask for photo ID, which is required under anti-money-laundering rules in most countries.
When is the best time to sell?
Nobody can time the market reliably, but you can avoid selling into a temporary dip by looking at the trend. The gold price history shows long-term yearly highs and lows, and the charts on each price page cover 24 hours to the full record since 1968. If you are not forced to sell, splitting a large lot into two or three sales over a few weeks smooths out short-term swings. What matters more than timing is the percentage of melt value you are paid: an extra 10% from a better buyer usually beats waiting for a 2% move in the market.