Guide
How to Sell Scrap Gold in the UK: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Selling scrap gold in the UK isn't complicated, but doing it well takes a bit of preparation. Rush in and you'll leave money on the table; take an hour to sort, weigh and compare properly and you can walk away with hundreds more for the exact same pile of broken chains. Here's the whole process, start to finish.
Step 1: Gather everything and sort by carat
Empty the jewellery box, the odd-sock drawer and that old tin on the mantelpiece. Broken chains, single earrings, snapped bracelets, bent rings, dental gold, it all has value. Once it's all in front of you, sort it into piles by carat: 9ct, 14ct, 18ct, 22ct. This matters enormously, because a buyer who weighs mixed carats together will pay you the lowest rate on the whole lot. Sorting protects the value of your higher-carat pieces.
Step 2: Find and read the hallmarks
Almost all UK gold carries a hallmark, usually on the clasp of a chain, the inside of a ring, or the post of an earring. You're looking for the fineness number: 375 (9ct), 585 (14ct), 750 (18ct) or 916 (22ct). You may also spot an assay office mark, the leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a rose for Sheffield or the three-towered castle for Edinburgh. If you can't read a stamp or nothing shows up at all, our hallmark decoder will help you work out what you've got. Unmarked items aren't worthless, but they'll need testing by the buyer.
Step 3: Weigh accurately
You need scales that read to 0.01 g. Kitchen scales that jump in whole grams aren't good enough, because on gold every fraction of a gram is real money. Small digital jewellery scales cost a few pounds online and pay for themselves instantly by letting you check a buyer's weighing against your own. Weigh each carat pile separately and write the numbers down.
Step 4: Handle stones and non-gold fittings
Dealers pay for gold weight only. A ring with a big stone, or a chain with a base-metal spring clasp, weighs more than its gold content. Honest buyers account for this, either by removing stones or by estimating and deducting the non-gold weight. If a piece has valuable stones, especially diamonds, don't scrap it blindly. Set those pieces aside for separate valuation; you'll often get far more selling them as jewellery than as melt.
Step 5: Get the melt value AND the realistic payout
Now the maths. Melt value is the pure gold content at today's spot price: weight × fineness × per-gram spot. Our gold calculator does this instantly for each carat. But remember, melt value is the ceiling, not the offer. Real buyers pay a percentage of it, roughly 50–70% at a pawnbroker or high-street shop, around 85–90% from an online mail-in refiner, and 90%+ from a specialist bullion dealer. Knowing both numbers means you can judge any offer on the spot.
Step 6: Choose your buyer type
Your options, from usually-lowest to usually-highest paying, are: pawnbrokers and high-street cash-for-gold, then online mail-in refiners, then specialist bullion dealers. Coins that are legal tender, like Sovereigns and Britannias, are a special case and sell near spot. Convenience costs you: the shop on the corner is quick but pays least. For most people with a decent amount of scrap, a reputable online refiner or specialist dealer wins comfortably.
Step 7: Get a written, itemised quote
This is the single most important habit. A trustworthy buyer will give you the price per gram, per carat, in writing, along with the weight they recorded and the total. Get two or three of these and compare them as a percentage of your melt value. If a buyer refuses to itemise and only offers a single lump sum, treat it as a red flag and move on.
ID and AML checks
Expect the buyer to ask for photo ID and proof of address — many reputable dealers do this as standard on every purchase, and it's more or less unavoidable on larger sales. This is anti-money-laundering compliance, not tax. Formal High Value Dealer rules kick in for cash payments of €10,000 or more (roughly £8,000–£9,000), and separately, paying cash for scrap metal is restricted by law, so a legitimate buyer will usually pay you by bank transfer or cheque rather than a wad of notes. Being asked for your driving licence is a sign you're dealing with a properly regulated business — the buyer happy to hand over thousands, no questions asked, is the one to worry about.
A quick word on tax
For most people selling old jewellery, tax simply won't come up: retail jewellery usually sells for less than it cost, so there's no gain to tax. Capital Gains Tax only bites on a profit, there's an annual allowance (verify the current figure with HMRC), a £6,000 chattels exemption per item or set, and legal-tender UK coins like Sovereigns and Britannias are CGT-exempt entirely. This is general information, not tax advice; check your own position with HMRC. For a fuller run-through, see our guide on how much gold you can sell without tax in the UK.
Timing and posting safely
On timing: gold prices move daily, but don't try to guess the peak. If the price looks reasonable against recent history and you're happy with the payout percentage, sell. Chasing the top usually just means dithering while the market drifts.
If you're posting to an online buyer, only use one that provides fully insured, tracked freepost. Reputable refiners send you a special-delivery pack or a returnable insured label. Photograph everything before it goes, note the tracked reference, and confirm the buyer's insurance actually covers the value you're sending. Never post gold in an ordinary untracked envelope.
Do this properly and selling scrap gold is genuinely low-stress: sort by carat, read your hallmarks, weigh to two decimal places, know both your melt value and a realistic payout, gather written itemised quotes, and only post through insured channels. The people who get short-changed are the ones who skip straight to handing a stranger a bag of gold. Don't be one of them, and watch out for the tricks in our rundown of common gold-selling scams in the UK before you commit.
All figures are estimates of melt value, never offers. Not financial or tax advice.