How to Sell Scrap Gold Without Getting Ripped Off

The short answer: compute your own melt value first, sort by karat, get two quotes from real buyers (refiners or coin shops, not kiosks), and treat anything under 70% of melt as an invitation to leave.

Gold buyers profit from one asymmetry: they know the number and you don’t. Close that gap and the whole transaction changes character. Here’s the process, start to finish.

Step 1 — Sort and disqualify

Group everything by the karat stamp (look inside ring bands, on clasps and bails): 10k, 14k, 18k piles. Pull out anything marked GP, GF, HGE, RGP or “plated” — no scrap value. Pull out anything signed (Cartier, Tiffany & Co., antique hallmarks) or with real stones — those can be worth multiples of melt as jewelry and deserve an appraisal before any melt decision.

Mixed-karat lots sold as one pile get blended toward the lowest stamp. Sorting is free money.

Step 2 — Weigh and compute

Any kitchen scale that reads grams works. Weigh each karat group, then run the numbers through the scrap gold calculator:

melt = grams × (karat ÷ 24) × spot ÷ 31.1035

Write the per-pile numbers down. This is the sheet of paper that changes the negotiation — buyers quote differently the moment they see you have it. Today’s spot is always on the gold price per gram page.

Step 3 — Choose buyers deliberately

Buyer	Typical % of melt	Notes
Online refiner	85–95%	Insured mailer, payout in days; check reviews first
Local coin/bullion shop	75–90%	Same-day cash, can test on the spot
Independent jeweler	60–80%	Better for resellable pieces than true scrap
Pawn shop	50–75%	Wide variance; fine if you might redeem
Mall kiosk / “gold party”	40–65%	Convenience priced at your expense
TV / mail-in buyer	often under 50%	Consistently the worst payers

Get two quotes minimum. The spread between the best and worst offer on identical gold is routinely 2× — twenty minutes of comparison shopping is the best hourly rate in this process.

Step 4 — Survive the counter tactics

Six moves to recognize: (1) weighing stones in with the metal, then quoting on gross weight; (2) quoting in pennyweight so the per-unit number sounds bigger — a dwt is ~1.56 g, so $40/dwt ≈ $26/g; (3) “testing fees” surfacing after the verbal offer; (4) blending your 18k into the 10k pile at one rate; (5) urgency theater — “spot could crash tomorrow”; (6) quoting off a stale spot price from a high-fee source. Every one of these dies on contact with your own written melt numbers.

Step 5 — Paperwork

Get a receipt with weight, karat and price paid. If you sold above your cost basis the gain is generally taxable (US: collectibles rate, up to 28% federal) — and for inherited gold the basis steps up to the value at inheritance, which usually shrinks the taxable gain to almost nothing. Selling silver too? The silver melt calculator does the same job, and 90% US coins usually sell at melt rather than below it.