Many people don’t realize that you can make lots of money from selling your outdated or unwanted gold jewelry. For thousands of years, gold has been in high demand, and that will not change soon. In addition to gold, you can sell other precious metals like silver, platinum or diamonds to earn extra income.

What’s the Value of Precious Metals (Gold and Silver)?

We can’t say for certain the exact value of gold and silver since it fluctuates just like the stock market. If you want to check recent trends and updated prices of gold and silver, visit APMEX for up to the minute price updates.

In terms of value, silver cost less than gold and platinum. A troy ounce of gold (31.1grams) can be valued at over $1,500. This value represents the weight of the gold in the metal alloy that makes up your jewelry.  

While gold might be a soft metal, it can’t be molded into jewelry on its own. It’s often combined with other metals to form an alloy. The best way to identify the value of the gold in your jewelry is by analyzing its karat value. For example, a 10 karat gold chain is made of 41.7% gold and 58.3% other metals.

When testing the value of your gold jewelry, it’s wise to consider its karat value and tweak the weight of the pieces. Buyers who purchase gold often utilize a formula to determine the exact value of the jewelry.

The same goes for silver. Sterling, a high-quality sliver, contains 92.5% silver and 7.5 other metals. But you can also find other jewelry with a silver of low purity levels.

Selling Precious Metals Online

Until recently, most people sold their gold and silver pieces to recycling centers, pawnshops, or other shops that work specifically with precious metals. While this is still the case, today there is a faster and more efficient way to sell your gold via the internet.

There are several websites out there customized for purchasing precious metals at scrap value. Sites like AMPEX buy gold and silver coins, bars, and bullion. They often purchase them in large quantities and only allow high-volume sales. If you’re selling a single piece of jewelry, AMPEX won’t help you. Consider finding a broker or a middle-man.

Most middle-men or brokers tend to purchase any quantity of precious metal alloys. And through a chemical process, they extract, meltdown, and refine the metals into their pure forms, then sell them at high prices to make a profit.

You can also sell your gold to mail-in buyers, including GoldKit, GoldPaq, and Cash4Gold. If you have a gold piece you’re selling, package it and ship it to them. They will weigh your piece and assess the amount of gold it contains. After that, they will pay your money.

Though this service is convenient, they often pay less than the actual value of the gold so they can maintain higher profit margins. Nevertheless, you can secure a better price by selling locally to a jewelry store.

Besides the options mentioned above, you can sell your unwanted gold jewelry to private buyers via trusted online auction websites, such as eBay. Through auction sites, you can secure better deals than selling your pieces to gold buying companies.

But keep one thing in mind, auction sites prioritize buyers over sellers. Therefore, be extra vigilant to protect yourself from scammers. There are many stories of people being taken advantage of on auction and classified websites.

The Best Way to Make Money Selling Precious Metals

If you happen to possess unwanted or outdated jewelry pieces or you want to make extra money from selling your precious metal items, consider going to your local jeweler to get your products measured and appraised.

Once you’ve estimated the value of your jewels, visit online auction sites or other precious metals sites and see if you can secure a better offer. Before selling your gold or precious metals to any company, take your time to research the company and be cautious of red flags, such as negative customer reviews.

If you’ve successfully transacted with a company before, you won’t have any trouble, mailing them your jewelry since you already know the process involved. Remember to look at the trends of precious metals so you can identify the exact time you can sell your metals to get a higher price and huge profit margin.

And if you’re a business minded person, you can start purchasing other people’s gold or silver jewelry pieces and selling them in bulk to make more profit.