Old jewellery can be hard to value from appearance alone. A piece may look substantial but contain relatively little gold, while something small may have a higher purity than expected. Before accepting an offer, it helps to work out what you actually own and which parts of its value a buyer is likely to consider.
Before you sell cash for gold, separate what you know from what you are assuming. A yellow ring may be solid gold, gold-filled, or plated. A heavy chain may contain a lower proportion of gold than a lighter one. Gemstones, designer provenance, age, and collectability can also change what the piece is worth, so starting with the metal alone can sometimes leave money on the table.
Read the Hallmarks First
Check clasps, the inside of rings, earring posts, and the backs of pendants for quality marks. Canadian gold jewellery may use karat marks such as 10K, 14K, or 18K, as well as decimal fineness marks.
But don’t treat the hallmark as the final word. Marks can wear down, older pieces may use unfamiliar conventions, and repairs can introduce metal of a different purity. If a piece appears unusual or potentially valuable, proper testing can confirm more than the stamp alone.
Decide Whether You Are Selling Jewellery or Scrap
Not every unwanted piece should be valued mainly by melt value. For a broken 10K chain, precious-metal content may dominate the offer. For a signed vintage bracelet, designer piece, or ring set with a significant stone, resale value may matter more.
Look for maker’s marks, brand signatures, original packaging, receipts, certificates, or earlier appraisals. When researching comparable pieces, focus on completed sales rather than current asking prices. Completed transactions are better evidence of what buyers have actually paid.
Gemstones are a different story. A gold buyer may assign little value to small stones, while a substantial diamond, sapphire, ruby, or emerald could justify an independent appraisal before you consider a metal-based offer.
Understand the Weight Being Used
A gold offer is usually influenced by weight, purity, the market price of gold, and the buyer’s costs and margin. That means the headline gold price you see online is not the amount you should expect per gram of jewellery.
What you should expect is a transparent weighing process. Measurement Canada says scales used to buy or sell precious metals by weight must be approved and inspected, designed for precious metals, and compliant with federal accuracy requirements. Its guidance on selling gold and other precious metals also explains what sellers can check when a scale is being used for the transaction.
Watch the weighing, confirm the unit being used, and ask whether stones or non-gold components are being deducted. If different buyers produce noticeably different payable weights for the same piece, find out why before agreeing to anything.
Check the Gold Price Before Comparing Offers
You don’t need to follow commodity markets closely, but knowing the approximate spot price on the day you request quotes gives you a useful reference point.
Then estimate the pure-gold content. For example, 20 grams of 14K jewellery is not 20 grams of gold. At roughly 58.3% purity, it contains about 11.66 grams of gold before accounting for stones or other components.
That calculation will not tell you exactly what a buyer should pay. It gives you enough context to compare offers intelligently and question numbers that seem unusually low.
Get the Right Kind of Second Opinion
For ordinary scrap jewellery, comparing several established buyers may be enough. For branded, antique, collectible, or gemstone-heavy pieces, consider an independent appraiser or specialist before approaching a scrap-gold buyer.
Also compare how offers are explained. A buyer who breaks down purity, payable weight, testing method, and pricing basis gives you something concrete to evaluate. A single unexplained dollar figure does not.
Find Out What Happens After You Accept
Before handing over the jewellery, ask when the sale becomes final and whether the pieces will be altered, dismantled, or sent for refining immediately. This matters if you want time to reconsider or if stones need to be removed and returned to you.
It is also worth confirming the payment method and whether you’ll receive a transaction record showing what was sold, the assessed purity, weight, and amount paid. For higher-value pieces, that paperwork gives you a useful record of the transaction and makes it easier to identify exactly how the final offer was calculated.
Know When Keeping It Makes More Sense
Some jewellery carries family history or is difficult to replace. That doesn’t mean you should automatically keep it, but a reminder that financial value is only one part of the decision.
A useful test is to ask yourself what you would do if the piece disappeared tomorrow. If your first thought would be to replace it, selling may not make sense. If it has spent years untouched in a drawer and the offer reflects its real market value, converting it into something more useful may be the better choice.
