For plain broken or unwanted gold, the best place to sell is a specialist buyer or refiner that publishes a price per gram for each carat and pays at least 90% of the metal's melt value - on 19 August 2026 that meant roughly £35.80 to £37.90 a gram for 9ct against a melt value of £38.63. Several online and Jewellery Quarter specialists do publish such rates; the big high-street pawnbrokers generally do not, and the postal "cash for gold" brands have a documented history of paying far less. For anything hallmarked by a known maker, antique, signed or set with a decent stone, scrap is the wrong route altogether: a jeweller or an auction house will usually pay more than melt.

The options compared

Melt value is weight x fineness x spot. At the 19 August 2026 open of £3,203.77 an ounce (£103.01 a gram), 9ct melt was £38.63 a gram, 18ct £77.26 and 22ct £94.36. Our scrap gold calculator does this for today's price.

Where What they pay (9ct, 19 Aug 2026 where published) Speed Good for Watch out for
Online or postal specialist that publishes rates (e.g. Gold-Traders) £35.82/g, 93% of melt; Gold-Traders states it pays "89.4% of spot" 1-3 days by post, price locked on dispatch Anyone not near a city; medium lots Insurance limits on the post; check the return-if-unhappy terms
Jewellery Quarter or Hatton Garden counter (e.g. Birmingham Gold Company) £36.63/g, 95% of melt Same day, cash or transfer Larger lots, anyone in Birmingham or London Not every shop in the street publishes a rate; the ones that do are the ones to use
Refiner with a public counter (e.g. Plus Gold Refining, Landale trade counter) £37.90/g, 98% of melt (Plus Gold); £37.58/g trade (Landale) Same day The best per-gram rates on plain scrap Trade-only rates may need a business account; small minimums
Local independent jeweller Not published; ask Same day Pieces with resale value; people who want a face and a receipt Some pay close to specialist rates, some pay 70%; ask for the per-gram figure
High-street pawnbroker (H&T, Ramsdens, Cash Converters) Not published online; quote in branch Same day Convenience; a loan against the gold instead of a sale You cannot check the rate before you go; a pledge is a loan, not a sale
Postal "cash for gold" brands that do not publish rates Historically very low - see the OFT case below Days Nothing we can think of Auto-acceptance terms, melt-before-you-object, no per-gram figure
Auction (e.g. Fellows) Hammer price less 15% commission plus VAT, £10 plus VAT per lot, 1.5% plus VAT loss and liability 4-8 weeks to sale, paid after the buyer pays Signed, antique, branded, stone-set or just attractive pieces Fees on the way in and out; unsold lots; scrap-value pieces are better sold as scrap

How do I know what my gold is worth before I go?

Three steps, five minutes.

  1. Find the hallmark. British hallmarks carry a fineness number: 375 is 9ct, 585 is 14ct, 750 is 18ct, 916 is 22ct. A loupe or a phone camera at full zoom will read it.
  2. Weigh it on a 0.1 g scale. Remove stones if they are loose and obviously not gold; otherwise accept that the buyer will deduct for them.
  3. Multiply: grams x fineness (0.375, 0.585, 0.750, 0.916) x today's spot per gram. That is melt. Divide any offer by that number to get the percentage.

A fair walk-in offer for ordinary scrap is 85% of melt or better. 90% or better is good. Under 75% is a reason to leave. The published specialists on 19 August were between 93% and 98%, so there is no reason to accept 80% from anyone in a city. Our piece on how gold buyers make money explains why the gap exists and why the honest ones sit where they sit.

Is a local jeweller or a postal buyer better?

It depends entirely on the jeweller. Plenty of independents price scrap at 90% or more to keep the customer; plenty price it at 70% because the customer did not ask. The difference between the two is one question: "What is your rate per gram for 9ct today?" A jeweller who answers with a number, and shows you the scale, is worth using. A jeweller who says "it depends" and makes one offer for the bag is not.

The postal specialists that publish rates are genuinely competitive. Gold-Traders publishes its rate per gram with a timestamp and the percentage of spot it is paying (Gold-Traders prices we pay, 19 August 2026: 9ct £35.82, 18ct £71.65, 22ct £87.51). The price is normally fixed at the point you post or the point they receive, so read which. Check the insurance limit on the pack - Royal Mail Special Delivery covers up to a stated value, and a 100 g 18ct lot is worth over £7,000.

The postal brands that do not publish rates are a different animal. The Office of Fair Trading investigated five of them between 2009 and 2011 - CashMyGold, Cash4Gold, Postal Gold, CashYourGoldNow and Money4Gold - over terms that treated a cheque as accepted unless returned within a short window, after which the gold could be melted, and over "high price" and "UK's No.1" claims made without saying the price was scrap value. Three gave undertakings to publish per-gram prices and allow a reasonable period to reject an offer; one left the UK market and one went into liquidation (OFT case, GOV.UK). If a postal buyer will not show a per-gram rate before you post, use one that will.

Do pawnbrokers pay well for scrap gold?

The large chains - H&T (286 stores at the time FirstCash completed its acquisition in August 2025), Ramsdens (over 165 stores) and the Cash Converters franchise - all buy gold outright as well as lending against it. When we checked on 19 August 2026, neither H&T's scrap gold page nor Ramsdens' published a per-gram rate; both ask you to request a quote or come in. That does not mean the rate is poor. It means you should get a published rate from a specialist first, then see whether the branch matches it.

Two things are specific to pawnbrokers. First, they will offer you a loan against the gold instead of a sale - a pledge under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, redeemable for at least six months, with interest. If you want the piece back, that is the product; if you do not, a sale is simpler and usually nets more. Second, pawnbrokers are better than most buyers at spotting items worth more than scrap, because they retail jewellery too, and will sometimes offer a "jewellery" price rather than a weight price. Ask which you are being offered. Our explainer on pawnbroker vs gold buyer covers the regulatory difference.

Is Hatton Garden or the Jewellery Quarter better than my town?

Usually yes for plain scrap, for one reason: competition in a single street keeps rates close to the refiner's. Birmingham Gold Company published 9ct at £36.63 and 18ct at £73.27 on 19 August 2026 (live prices). Several Hatton Garden buyers publish similarly; Hatton Garden Metals normally publishes a per-gram table and a two-day price guarantee, though its prices page would not load for us on the day.

The caution is that not every shop in either street publishes, and the ones that rely on footfall rather than a published rate are not always the best payers. Use the published rate from one shop as your floor and walk into the next with it.

Can I sell direct to a refiner?

Sometimes, and it is where the best per-gram rates are. Plus Gold Refining Ltd publishes public prices updated each weekday at 9am - 9ct £37.90, 18ct £75.80, 24ct £100.97 on 19 August 2026 (Plus Gold scrap calculator) - which is 98% of melt at the Forbes open. Landale Metals in Edinburgh publishes trade counter rates against the AM fix: 9ct £37.58, hallmarked 18ct £75.16, fine gold £100.11 (Landale counter prices).

The larger refiners - Baird & Co, Cookson - are set up for trade lots and do not publish public terms. For a member of the public with a ring and a chain, the refiner counters that do publish are the realistic version of "direct to refiner". For a jeweller with a month of counter buys, a trade account with a refiner is the right outlet and the terms should be in writing before the first lot.

When should I not sell as scrap at all?

When the piece is worth more as a piece. Anything signed (Cartier, Tiffany, Boodles, a known Arts and Crafts maker), anything antique with its hallmarks intact, anything set with a diamond over about half a carat or a good coloured stone, and anything simply well-made and wearable will usually fetch more at auction or from a jeweller than its weight.

Auction is not free. Fellows, the Birmingham specialist, charges vendors 15% commission plus VAT, a £10 plus VAT marketing fee per sold lot and a 1.5% plus VAT loss and liability charge on the hammer price, and charges buyers 25% plus VAT on the first £100,000 (Fellows terms via the-saleroom.com). So a piece that hammers at £1,000 nets the vendor about £790 after VAT on the fees, and the buyer paid £1,300. The piece has to be worth materially more than melt for that to beat a 95% scrap offer, and for signed or period jewellery it usually is.

A jeweller who buys to retail will often pay between scrap and the auction net, faster, with no risk of an unsold lot. Get both numbers.

What are the red flags?

  • No per-gram rate on request. The rate exists; they are choosing not to tell you.
  • One offer for the whole bag, without weighing by carat in front of you.
  • Stones "deducted" without being weighed, or a refusal to return them.
  • A cheque that counts as accepted unless you object within days - the OFT term.
  • "Today only" pressure. Spot moves daily but a genuine buyer's rate will be there tomorrow.
  • A buyer who will not give you a receipt showing weight, carat and price. You will want it if the piece turns out to be worth more, and the buyer needs it for their own records.

What we could not verify

  • High-street pawnbroker rates. H&T and Ramsdens did not publish a per-gram price online on 19 August 2026; Cash Converters' rates are set per store. We cannot place them against the specialists.
  • Hatton Garden Metals' rates. The prices page could not be retrieved on the day.
  • Typical independent-jeweller rates. Nobody publishes a survey; the 70%-90% range is from our own experience of the trade, not a source.
  • The spot figure. Dealer rates were captured at different times on 19 August against a moving price; the percentages are accurate to about a point.

Sources

This is general information, not financial advice, and it is not a valuation. Gold prices move by the minute and buyers change rates without notice. Check today's price and the buyer's published rate before you sell, and for anything that might be worth more than its weight, get a second opinion before it is melted.

Milleso is built for the buyers on the other side of this counter: it prices each purchase as weight x fineness x spot, records the melt-or-keep decision and the seller's identity at intake, and produces the receipt with weight, carat and price that a fair buyer hands over.