Where to Sell Gold Jewelry

There are two completely different ways to sell gold jewelry, and choosing the wrong one is how people lose most of their money.

You can sell it for its gold content, in which case it is scrap and the design is irrelevant. Or you can sell it as jewelry, in which case the maker, the design and the stones may be worth several times the metal. Working out which applies to your piece is the whole task.

The two prices your piece has

Melt value is the weight of pure gold in the item multiplied by the current spot price. It is arithmetic, and you can calculate it yourself.

Jewelry value is what someone will pay to wear it, and on a signed designer piece, an antique, or anything with significant stones, it is frequently a large multiple of melt.

The critical asymmetry: a scrap buyer will pay melt for a piece worth four times that, and be within their rights. They are buying metal. If you hand a signed Art Deco ring to a gold-buying counter, you get paid for the gold.

So establish which you have before you sell anything.

Working out your melt value

Find the karat mark. 10K, 14K, 18K, 22K, 24K, or European marks — 417, 585, 750, 916, 999. The number is the parts of gold per thousand.

Weigh it in grams, on a scale that reads to a tenth of a gram.

Calculate the pure gold content. 14K is 58.5 percent gold, so 10 grams of 14K contains 5.85 grams of pure gold. 18K is 75 percent.

Multiply by the spot price per gram, which is published and moves daily.

That figure is your floor. Nobody will pay you the full melt value, because the buyer has to refine it and make a margin — expect a percentage of melt rather than melt itself, and expect that percentage to vary a lot between buyers.

Remove what is not gold before weighing: stones, clasps of other metals, and anything plated. And check that the piece is solid rather than plated or filled at all — "gold filled" and "gold plated" are not gold for these purposes, and they are marked accordingly.

When it is worth more than melt

A recognized maker's mark. A signed piece from an established house can be worth several multiples of its metal. Look inside bands, on clasps and on the reverse of settings.

Significant stones. Diamonds and quality colored stones carry their own value, and a scrap buyer will not pay for them.

Period and antique pieces. Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and mid-century work often carries a design premium well above content.

Complete with box and papers, which matters more than people expect.

Unusual or discontinued designs with a collector following.

If any of these apply, do not sell it as scrap until you have had it valued as jewelry. Our guide to jewelry appraisal covers how that assessment works.

Where to sell it

For scrap: refiners and gold-buying counters. Get at least three quotes and ask each what percentage of melt they are paying, because the spread between buyers is wide and quoting a percentage forces a comparable answer. Never sell to a mail-in service on a first offer, and never sell to anyone who will not weigh it in front of you.

For jewelry value: an auction house for significant or antique pieces, a specialist jewelry dealer, or a marketplace where you can reach collectors directly.

General marketplaces work when the piece has a searchable name — a maker, a collection, a stone type and weight. They work poorly for unsigned pieces, since buyers cannot search for something they cannot name.

Live selling suits jewelry particularly well, and the reason is straightforward: jewelry photographs badly and shows well. Gold's color, the way a stone catches light, the actual scale on a hand — none of these survive a still photograph, and all of them sell the piece. In a live format the seller can turn the piece under the light, show the hallmark up close, put it on a hand for scale, and answer a question about the clasp while the buyer is watching. It is also how mixed lots and estate pieces genuinely sell, since a room of interested buyers works better than one static listing per item. ShopBidz has a jewelry category and takes 8.8 percent from sellers, card processing included.

Before you sell anything

Photograph everything, including hallmarks, close up.

Get the hallmark read properly if you cannot identify it. Misreading a maker's mark is an expensive mistake in one direction only.

Do not clean aggressively. Polishing can remove hallmarks, soften engraving, and on antique pieces destroy patina that carries value. A soft cloth is the limit.

Do not break up a piece to sell stones separately unless a valuer has told you it is worth more that way.

Keep the paperwork. Certificates, receipts, valuations and boxes all add value and cost nothing to keep.

The pattern to avoid

The common and expensive sequence is: inherit a box of jewelry, take it to a gold-buying counter, accept the first offer, and discover afterward that one of the pieces was signed.

One valuation appointment before selling anything protects against that entirely. If everything is genuinely scrap, you have lost an hour. If one piece is not, you have saved several times the fee.

Bottom line

Establish first whether your piece is worth its gold content or worth more as jewelry, because scrap buyers pay melt regardless of what the piece actually is. Read the karat mark, weigh in grams, calculate the pure gold content and multiply by spot to get your floor — then expect a percentage of that, and get at least three quotes. If there is a maker's mark, significant stones, or period design, have it valued as jewelry first. Jewelry sells poorly from still photographs and well when a buyer can see it move under light, which is what a live format provides.