Where to sell jewellery, and what each route takes

Know what you are selling before you choose where

Every route trades three things against each other: the price you get, how long it takes, and how much of the work and risk you carry. Which trade suits you depends less on the route than on the piece, so settle that first.

A worn nine carat chain, odd earrings and broken links are metal. There is no design worth preserving and no stone worth extracting, so the fastest route is the right one. A modern mass-market diamond ring is a second-hand consumer good competing against identical new ones, and it fetches a fraction of its retail price whichever route you choose. A signed piece, a period piece, a large fine stone with a laboratory report or an intact original set is something else entirely, and selling it as metal or on a general marketplace is how people lose the difference.

If you do not yet know which of the three you are holding, find out before you sell rather than after. A photograph-based reading from Carat will at least sort a box into pieces that deserve a specialist and pieces that do not, and what is my jewellery worth sets out the three figures a piece carries at once.

The routes at a glance

The pattern is consistent. The faster and easier the route, the more of the price somebody else keeps.

Buyers who pay for the metal

A gold buyer or refiner pays a percentage of melt value: the weight of the piece, multiplied by its fineness, multiplied by today’s spot price, less a margin for refining and price risk. That is the whole basis. Nothing is paid for the workmanship, the age, the maker or the design, and stones are either deducted or quietly kept. It is the right route for scrap and the wrong route for anything else, and melting cannot be undone.

Know three numbers before you walk in: today’s spot price, the fineness from the hallmark, and the weight in grams. Watch the piece being weighed, ask for the price per gram in writing, and be wary of postal services that make an offer only after your parcel arrives. Reading gold hallmarks covers the fineness part.

A pawnbroker is not a buyer at all. They lend against the piece and hold it; you repay with interest and charges to redeem it, or you do not and it is sold. It raises money quickly and realises little value, so treat it as borrowing rather than a sale.

Jewellers and dealers: outright or on consignment

A jeweller or antique dealer buying outright is buying stock. They have to sell it again, from premises, with staff, and possibly not for a year. The offer is therefore what they believe they can sell it for, less the margin that makes the exercise worth doing. That margin is not a slight; it is the business. The advantage is that they price the whole piece rather than the metal in it, and you have the money the same week.

Consignment reverses the deal. The dealer displays the piece and takes a commission when it sells, so you keep more of the eventual price and they carry no stock risk. It usually pays better than an outright sale, and it can take months, or never. Agree in writing the asking price, the commission, who insures the piece while it is with them, how long the arrangement runs and what happens when it ends.

Auction: a real price, and no promise about it

An auction finds what a competitive room will pay on a particular day, which is the closest thing there is to a market price for an unusual object. It suits signed work, period pieces, fine or large stones, and anything whose right buyer is rare and needs finding.

The costs are layered. The seller pays a commission on the hammer price, and there are commonly separate charges for lotting, photography, insurance while the piece is in store and, sometimes, an unsold fee if the lot fails to meet its reserve. Ask for the full schedule in writing before you consign, and ask what happens if it does not sell.

The other cost is time and uncertainty. Sales are scheduled months ahead, settlement follows weeks after the sale, and an estimate is an opinion rather than a promise. A reserve protects you from a bad day. It does not protect you from a slow one.

Selling it yourself online

Listing a piece yourself removes the dealer’s margin, which is why the headline figure looks better. It does not remove the work, or the fees. Platform commission and payment processing together commonly take somewhere near a tenth of the sale, before postage and insured delivery.

The rest of the cost is risk, and it moves onto you. You write the description, and an inaccurate one is your problem. You post an object worth several months of wages and rely on a carrier. Buyer protection schemes favour the buyer, so a return, a dispute or a swapped item is yours to manage. Photograph the piece thoroughly before it leaves your hands, including any hallmark and any identifying detail, and keep proof of what you sent.

It works best for pieces buyers search for by name: a recognisable brand, a documented stone, a model with a following.

A specialist, when the piece deserves one

For a signed piece, a period piece or an important stone, a dealer who specialises in that is often the only route to a buyer willing to pay what it is worth. They already have the customer. A general buyer does not, and prices in the risk of holding something they cannot place.

The margin is still a margin, and it may look no kinder than a jeweller’s. The difference is the number it is taken from. A specialist also recognises what they are looking at, which is why they are worth showing a piece to even if you sell elsewhere.

Rules that hold whichever route you choose

• Get more than one offer, and get them from different kinds of buyer. The spread on the same piece is routinely wide.
• Never let anything be melted, broken up or altered before a second opinion from someone who is not buying it.
• Photograph everything before it leaves your hands: front, side, back, clasp, and a close view of any hallmark.
• Be sceptical of a valuation offered by the person who wants to buy. It is an offer wearing a different hat.
• Have weight and fineness established in front of you, not quoted at you.
• Keep receipts, laboratory reports and original boxes with the piece. They change the price.

Inherited pieces deserve a slower version of all of this, and there is a sequence for it in inherited jewellery: what to do first.