How to sell gold safely by post in the UK (2026 guide)

Start with a question, never a parcel

The first step in selling gold by post should never be a parcel. It should be a conversation. Send a photo on WhatsApp, describe what you have, and ask anything that is on your mind. A reputable postal buyer will give you an honest indicative figure with no obligation, explain what they can and cannot tell from a photograph, and answer questions about the process before anything leaves your hands.

There are four signs of a buyer worth dealing with at this stage. First, they explain the testing method, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) rather than eyeballing or acid testing. Second, they put the offer in writing once your items arrive, with the purity, the weight, the live rate and the figure shown. Third, they pay for a tracked, insured return if you decline. Fourth, they do not chase you with countdowns or "today only" pressure. If any of those four are missing, that is information, and you have lost nothing by asking.

Step 1. Ask, photograph and get an indicative figure

Open WhatsApp on 07375 071158 (or call 07763 741067 if you would rather talk). Send four or five clear photos: one shot of the whole lot, then close-ups of any hallmarks, clasps, stones and engravings. Mention the rough weight if you have kitchen scales. Mention the carat if you know it. Ask whatever else is on your mind, whether it is worth posting at all, whether anything looks plated, whether something might carry collector value beyond its metal.

What can go wrong here is small but worth noting. A photograph cannot replace an XRF assay, so any indicative figure is necessarily a guide rather than a firm offer; the live rate moves intra-day; and an honest buyer cannot tell from a phone shot whether a clasp is sterling or plated. If a buyer gives you a firm figure from a photo, they are either guessing or padding the figure to leave themselves margin once the parcel arrives. Treat the WhatsApp number as a sanity check, not a binding quote.

Step 2, Pack like a jeweller would

• Photograph the lot one final time, laid out flat. This is your own record.
• Wrap each piece individually in tissue or bubble wrap so nothing moves in transit. Movement causes scratches and, occasionally, lost stones.
• Place the wrapped pieces in a small rigid box or a padded envelope. Strong, plain packaging is the brief.
• Seal every edge with strong tape. Self-seal tape on padded envelopes is rarely enough on its own.
• Keep the outside plain. Never write "gold", "jewellery", "valuables" or the name of any precious-metal buyer on the parcel.
• Take the parcel to a staffed Post Office counter, never a postbox. The receipt you get back is the most important paper in the whole transaction.

What can go wrong here is well-known. A loose chain in an envelope can poke through and snag in a sorting machine. A package marked "fragile" is sometimes handled less carefully, not more (since "fragile" is also a common signal of high value). A parcel dropped in a postbox is uninsured for any postal-gold purpose, even if it carries a Special Delivery label, the receipt is what activates the cover, and the receipt only exists when a Post Office clerk hands it back.

Step 3, Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed, in detail

For gold and silver in 2026, the right service is Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed. It is tracked end to end, signed for on delivery, and offered with two different consequential-loss compensation tiers. The standard tier is £750. A higher tier of £2,500 is available for an additional fee at the Post Office counter, and is what most precious-metal buyers ask sellers to use as a default for ordinary jewellery lots. For anything above £2,500 in expected value, the standard service stops being the right tool: speak to the buyer in advance so they can either upgrade the cover, send out additional labels and split the parcel, or arrange a courier-level service.

The cover is not automatic in either tier. The receipt the Post Office hands you carries the tracking number and is your evidence the parcel entered the Royal Mail network at a particular branch on a particular date. Without that receipt, a claim is extremely difficult to support, regardless of whether the label was correctly purchased online. Keep the receipt clipped to your photo records until you have been paid in full.

Step 4, The documented assay, what the written offer contains

When the parcel arrives, a reputable buyer follows a documented chain of custody. The parcel is logged against the description you gave on WhatsApp. Your items stay identifiable as yours rather than being pooled with other sellers' parcels. Each piece is separated by carat (because a 9ct chain cannot be priced at 18ct rates without cheating one side), weighed on calibrated scales to two decimal places of a gram, and XRF-assayed to confirm the actual fine-metal content of the alloy.

You then receive a written, itemised offer. The fields you should expect to see are: a per-piece description; the confirmed purity (e.g. 75.0% for 18ct, 37.5% for 9ct); the measured weight in grams; the live rate per gram of fine gold on the day of assay; the per-piece figure; the lot total; and a clear statement of how long the offer holds open. Anything missing from that list is a red flag, particularly the purity figure and the live rate, since without them there is no way to check the working.

How GoldPaid differs from the "send-us-a-pack" competitors

A large segment of the UK postal-gold market still runs on a different model. You request a pre-printed pack, which arrives by ordinary post several days later. You return your items in the pack, often on a service the seller cannot easily distinguish from standard Royal Mail. The buyer then sends an offer, sometimes after a delay, and the friction of getting your items back if you decline is, by design, higher than the friction of accepting. The model relies on a percentage of sellers accepting whatever lands rather than going through the return process.

GoldPaid is the opposite of that model and was built deliberately so. Labels are sent the same day, direct to your phone or email as QR or PDF, so the parcel can be on its way the same afternoon if you choose. The service is always Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed at an appropriate cover tier, never an underpowered alternative. Offers are written and itemised, with the purity and rate shown. Decline-and-return is genuinely free of charge, by tracked Royal Mail, with no restocking fee, holding fee, return-postage charge or any other cost. The whole point of the postal model is that you spend the assessment period at home with your normal week, not in someone else's shop under counter lighting.

Step 5. Accept, decline or sleep on it

A genuine no-obligation offer has no real deadline, only the practical one that the live precious-metal rate moves and the offer is built against the rate on the day. In practice that means an offer is firm for the day it is issued, and is re-run free of charge against the next day's rate if you take longer to decide. If you accept, payment is by Faster Payments bank transfer, typically the same working day. If you decline, your items are returned free of charge by tracked, insured Royal Mail post. If you want to sleep on it, that is fine, your items stay safe in our handling chain.

There is also a less-discussed third option: ask for a written valuation without committing to selling. Some people post items mainly to find out what is real gold and what is not, what is plated, what carries a hallmark and what is unmarked but still solid. A written, XRF-confirmed breakdown is useful even if you decline the offer, it tells you what you have, in a form that holds up for family discussion, probate paperwork or insurance scheduling.

When postal genuinely is not the right route

Postal selling is the right answer in most situations, but not all. If you need cash in your hand within the hour, a postal sale will not be quick enough, and a high-street buyer or a pawnbroker is the practical choice (see our honest comparison of the maths). If you have a single very high-value piece, a Hatton Garden specialist with vault facilities may suit better than a postal lot. If your item is genuinely collectable (a rare-date Sovereign, a signed Cartier piece, a vintage Rolex), a specialist auction or dealer will pay more than any metal-only buyer.

For everything else, postal works for the same reasons it has always worked for the wider precious-metals industry: a tracked, insured parcel travels with a digital paper trail, a fixed cover level and an audit chain, while a counter walk-in involves you physically carrying valuables through a busy street and arguing for the offer in real time with no quiet to think.

Common questions

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