Selling Gold Jewellery and Scrap: How Payouts Work

How a scrap payout is actually calculated

The formula is simple: fine-gold weight, times spot, times the payout percentage the buyer is offering, and that last number is the one buyers are least likely to put in writing unless you ask.

Across our three hubs, payouts run anywhere from 40% to 92% of melt value depending on who is buying. Reputable, assay-first dealers pay 80 to 92% of melt. Informal cash-for-gold kiosks and instant-cash counters routinely pay toward the bottom of that range, sometimes below it. The spread is the entire negotiation, and it is exactly why getting two or three quotes before selling is not optional.

Here is the arithmetic on a real example. Take 100 grams of 18k jewellery. 18k gold is 75% fine, so that is 75 grams of pure gold content once stones, solder and clasp weight are excluded. At $4,298 per troy ounce spot, that is about $138.18 per gram of fine gold, so 75 grams comes to roughly $10,364 in melt value. A reputable buyer paying 80 to 92% of melt offers somewhere between $8,291 and $9,535 for that same 100 grams. A buyer paying nearer 40% of melt, the bottom of the range we see quoted, offers around $4,146, less than half the honest number for identical metal.

Our assay-first process

We test before we quote, not the other way round.

• Independent karat test by XRF or acid, on the piece itself, before any number is discussed
• Fine-gold weight calculated net of stones, solder and clasps, shown to you as a separate figure
• Payout quoted as an explicit percentage of that day's live spot, in writing, before you agree to anything
• Room to compare our quote against two or three others before deciding
• Transparent per-gram schedule by karat, so 18k, 22k and 24k pieces are priced on a schedule you can see
• ID and AML paperwork completed properly, a legal requirement for any legitimate buyer in Dubai, Singapore or Hong Kong, not paperwork we add for effect

What you should not sell as scrap

Melt-value pricing suits a broken chain or an out-of-style bangle. It is the wrong tool for two categories of item that reach our door as often as plain jewellery does.

Signed pieces from a recognized maker, Cartier, Van Cleef, Bulgari and similar houses, carry design and brand value that a per-gram melt quote ignores completely. The same goes for anything with period craftsmanship or a maker's mark you do not recognize: it is worth a second look before it goes on the scale.

Old coins are the other category, and they turn up in family gold more often than people expect. A Gold Sovereign or a pre-1932 issue is not scrap. Our numismatic coins page explains why melt is the floor on a historic coin, never the ceiling, and grading it before selling can change the outcome by a large multiple. If you inherited a mixed lot, jewellery and coins together, ask us to separate the two before anything is quoted as scrap. Our guide to selling inherited gold in Dubai covers the paperwork side of exactly this situation.