A seller is always in a weaker position than a buyer. The buyer can wait. The seller usually needs the money now. People who know that will use it.
This explains how to protect yourself, even if you do not sell to us.
Nobody is going to give you the full market price. Whoever buys from you has to make something, or why would they buy?
We take a margin. It is written on your paper. Anyone promising you the full market price is hiding the margin somewhere else — in the weight, in the purity reading, or in "fees" that surface later.
A stated margin is not the problem. A hidden one is.
This is the most useful sentence in this article.
Before you go anywhere, work out roughly what you have. Weigh the pieces on a kitchen scale if you have to. Read the stamps. Calculate the pure gold: 21k means 87.5% of the weight.
Multiply by today's price per gram — available on any website in seconds — and you have an approximate number.
Now you walk in knowing. When someone quotes you a figure, you will know instantly whether it is in the right area or nowhere near it.
Someone who walks in without a number in his head accepts whatever number he is given.
The weight should be read in front of you, on a display you can see.
The test should happen in front of you, not in a back room. You should see the machine's result with your own eyes.
If someone refuses to let you watch, ask yourself what is stopping them.
Market price is X. Weight is Y. Purity is Z. Margin is this. Total is that.
Five numbers on a piece of paper. If any one of them is missing, you cannot check the arithmetic.
Take the written offer and go somewhere else. Nothing is stopping you.
Anyone who pressures you by saying the offer "expires today" is telling you something about himself.
The gold price does not collapse in two hours. Someone who wants you to decide quickly does not want you to think.
If you can help it. The worst price you will ever get is the one you take when you cannot afford to say no.
If you know you will need money in three months, start getting valuations now, not on the last day.
If the piece is inherited, or it means something to you, or it was made by hand in a design that does not exist twice — think again.
We will weigh it, calculate the gold in it, and melt it. We will give you the value of the metal. That is a fair price, but it is not the value of the object.
Some things should not be sold to a bullion dealer. And if you bring us one of them, we will tell you so.
When you walk in to sell gold, the important question is not "what is the price?" It is "how do you know it is gold?" If you do not understand the answer, you are trusting a stranger on a number you cannot check.
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