Stage one: bring it in
Come to the counter with whatever you have — jewellery, coins, bars, or a drawer of unsorted odds and ends. Nothing needs cleaning, repairing, sorting or pre-valuing, and there is no minimum worth bringing. Broken chains, single earrings and pieces with the stones still in them are all perfectly normal things to have assessed. If you are unsure whether something is even gold or silver, that question is part of the service, not a prerequisite for it.
The one preparation genuinely worth doing is understanding the units before you arrive. Precious metals are weighed in troy ounces — 31.1035 grams, about ten per cent heavier than the everyday ounce — and purity is stated in carats or parts per thousand. Both are explained plainly in our purity and weight guide, and knowing them is the difference between following a valuation and merely hearing one.
Stage two: weighed in front of you
Every item is examined and weighed at the counter while you watch. Nothing is taken to a back room, and the scale stays where you can see it — the weight is read out as it is taken, from the display you are looking at. This is not a courtesy; it is the whole basis of trust in a trade where the product is measured rather than described.
Examination means more than the scale. Hallmarks are read under magnification, and where a mark is worn, missing, or looks wrong, the metal is tested rather than assumed. Items that mix materials — a gold ring with stones, a bracelet with a steel spring clasp — are assessed for their actual recoverable metal, with the non-gold components allowed for openly rather than silently weighed in your favour or against it.
Stage three: an offer against the market
A serious offer has three visible parts: what the metal weighs, how pure it is, and the market reference it is being measured against. Precious-metal prices move through the trading day, so the figure relates to the market at the moment of assessment — and the working is shown rather than summarised. You should be able to see how weight, fineness and the reference price produced the number, because a figure you can check is worth more than a bigger figure you cannot.
This is also where the two-reading rule for coins applies: if a coin is worth more as a coin than as metal — a rare date, a low mintage, an unusual strike — that is said plainly, rather than pricing a collectable as scrap. The same honesty runs the other way: plated items and rolled gold are identified as what they are, before any number is put on the table.
Stage four: accept, or take it home
If the figure suits you, the sale completes there and then. If it does not, your items go back in your pocket, and that outcome is treated as an ordinary one — not a negotiation tactic, not a failure. There is no obligation at any point, and declining today does not prejudice a different decision next month. Gold does not spoil.
Between those two outcomes sits a third, underused option: taking the itemised figures away with you. Because the working is shown, the assessment is portable — you can compare it, sit with it, or check it against the market reference yourself.
Why the order matters
Each stage exists to protect the one after it. Weighing in front of you makes the weight a shared fact rather than a claim. Establishing fineness before any money is discussed means the offer is built on measurements you witnessed. And putting the decision last — after every number is on the table — means you are never asked to commit to a figure you have not seen constructed. Any process that runs these stages in a different order is asking for trust it has not yet earned.
The questions this page cannot answer
Fees, appointment arrangements, payment methods, identification requirements and timing are commitments only the business can make, and this site does not state them until they are confirmed — a policy that applies to every fact on every page. What has been confirmed is always current on the contact page, and the FAQ covers the general questions in plain language.