Where to Sell Your Gold Jewelry
If you have a few pieces of gold jewelry you no longer wear or want to own, you have some options, depending on your preferences and the intrinsic value of your jewelry. There’s a way to go about it. Read on.
Determine the Value of the Actual Gold You Have
All that glitters is not gold, according to Kanye West in Family Business (Shakespeare said it first, but never mind).
If you want to know how much gold you have in the jewelry you are thinking of selling, the process is this:
- Look at the hallmark on the jewelry. It should be marked with the karat value of the piece.
- Then divide 24 into that karat number. For example, if the piece is 14K, you divide 14 by 24 and multiply by 100 to get the percentage of pure gold (58.33%)
- Write down all the different values you have in the different pieces of jewelry.
- Weigh the jewelry, one piece at a time and record its weight in grams. (You need a very accurate scale which measures grams). If there are any stones in the jewelry, you need to take them out first.
- Multiply the weight of each piece of jewelry by the percentage of gold in it. Add up the results.
- Then look up the price of gold. It varies from day to day.
- Multiply the amount of gold you have by the price of gold.
That’s it! Now you know how much the gold in your jewelry is really worth.
How Much Can You Sell It For?
So, you know how much the gold is actually worth. But can you sell it for that? The answer is, probably not.
You will be selling your jewelry to a pawn shop, a gold dealer or a jeweler. They are all in business to make a profit, so they will offer to pay you a wholesale price, which may be considerably less than the values you so carefully calculated. Pawn shops will probably offer you the least, followed by gold dealers. A jewelry store might offer you slightly more, but you need to shop around to find out where the best offer is.
What If My Jewelry is Unique?
If you have an antique piece or a brand name with unusual features, you might try an online auction, Ebay, or even Facebook marketplace. A jewelry store might have an interest. It’s always important to check with a couple before accepting an offer. Be sure to have your jewelry shined up and sparkling its best before you put it on the market. Buyers want clean pieces.
Trade-In Value
If you are just tired of the particular pieces you have and might buy some more, you could offer them to a jewelry store in exchange for new pieces. You will have the bargaining power of knowing how much gold they contain and the relative worth on the gold market, so you may be able to negotiate a good trade.
