October 7th, 2021 | Updated on June 30th, 2022
Selling gold jewelry is a great way to raise extra money and old jewelry you don’t wear anymore into something more useful.
But it always pays to have a plan. Selling gold jewelry in a rush may mean you don’t find the best possible price.
You want to make sure you get the right price for your gold jewelry. Protect yourself and your earnings by keeping these 7 tips for selling gold jewelry in mind.
Getting The Right Price For Your Gold Jewelry
1. Find A Trustworthy Buyer
What makes a trustworthy buyer? Start doing some research online. Do people generally speak well of them in reviews? Have they received news coverage or spoken to the media before? Do they advertise their prices and provide a transparent process? It pays to look into potential buyers, even if you’ve received a personal recommendation.
2. Learn The Spot Price Of Gold
It stands to reason that you should know what gold is really worth before you sell it. Look up the spot price of gold before you take your jewelry anywhere. The gold spot price is like a stock price; it’s an average of what an ounce of gold bullion (99.9% pure) is selling for presently.
Don’t expect to get that amount per ounce on your old gold necklace. The buyer has their own costs for recycling or reselling it. But the spot price provides a useful benchmark.
Knowing it will help alert you to unfair offers. Based on the purity of your jewelry, you can get a better idea.
For example, 18k jewelry is 75% pure (calculated as 18/24 or .750 pure) – so calculating the price of the spot price * 75% will give you a better idea of the raw value of your 18k jewelry.
3. Get Your Gold Evaluated
Get your gold jewelry evaluated by a professional. If you’re dealing with coins, take it to someone with experience in numismatics.
If you think there might be collectible value to the piece, find someone who works in those markets. Unless you take it to a specialist, you won’t know for sure if it’s worth more.
4. Don’t Mix High And Low-Karat Items
One of the tactics less reputable buyers use is gold parties, where jewelry is purchased at a price based on the lowest-karat item.
They expect you to lump all of your pieces together, and they get a great discount on higher-karat jewelry if you go along with it. Don’t let buyers weigh all of your jewelry together, but insist on finding a price for each individual piece.
5. Scrap Vs Collectible
How much is your gold really worth? Old or broken jewelry is often melted down and recycled, but sometimes there are surprising discoveries worth more than you might expect.
An appraisal is the best way to determine if your piece is scrap or a potential collectible. Start with a free evaluation from a credible company – they will let you know if a paid appraisal is worth it.
6. Shop Around
Never sell gold in a rush. The first offer you receive might be the best one, but you won’t know until you’ve tried elsewhere. Don’t be afraid to explore all of your options and see if you can get a better price somewhere else.
7. Keep Your Expectations Realistic
You want to be informed before selling gold jewelry or coins and prepared to avoid low-ball prices or rogue buyers, but you also need to be realistic.
Many sellers go into the situation believing that their gold is much more valuable than it really is. That’s particularly true of sellers who have inherited items from loved ones who over-inflated the gold content or value of a piece.
The point of doing your research is to get a realistic price. Sometimes that may mean accepting that a piece is worth less than you’d hoped, but it also means protecting yourself from unfair offers.
