Selling gold at auction versus to a postal buyer

Auction sells the object, a metal buyer buys the material

An auction house puts your piece in front of collectors, dealers and enthusiasts and lets them compete. If two people in that room both want a specific Cartier bangle or a 1911 proof sovereign, the price is decided by their competition, not by a per-gram rate. That is the mechanism, and on the right item it produces figures a metal buyer cannot approach.

A precious-metal buyer is doing something structurally different. The offer is built from an assay of what the alloy actually is, its weight, and the live market that day. Each step of a postal gold sale, from label to payment, is set out separately. It has a floor, it is quick, and it is certain. A name, a period or a rarity does not survive refining, so where one of those carries the value, an auction house is the place to price it.

What auction actually costs the seller

Seller charges are published and vary between houses, so check the specific saleroom. As a concrete UK reference, Fellows Auctioneers, a Birmingham jewellery and watch specialist, publishes its seller fees openly: 15 per cent commission plus VAT, a £10 per lot marketing fee plus VAT, and a 1.5 per cent plus VAT loss and liability charge per lot (Fellows Auctioneers selling fees calculator, checked 6 August 2026). Other houses structure it differently, and some charge for photography, cataloguing, insurance or unsold lots as well.

The reason to set that out plainly is not to argue against auction. It is so the comparison is like for like. If a lot hammers at £1,000, the seller does not receive £1,000. Ask any saleroom for their full schedule of seller charges in writing before consigning, and ask specifically what happens to fees if the lot does not sell.

What auction costs in time and certainty

• Consignment to sale is typically several weeks, because lots are grouped into scheduled specialist sales rather than sold on demand.
• Settlement follows the sale rather than the hammer, commonly a few weeks after, once the buyer has paid.
• A reserve protects you from a giveaway price but also means the lot can go unsold, and you start again in a later sale.
• The result is genuinely unknown until the day. Estimates are informed opinion, not offers.
• For a mixed jewellery box, much of the contents will not be catalogued individually at all and will be grouped into a job lot.

When auction is clearly the better route

Consign to a specialist saleroom, not a metal buyer, if your piece is any of these. Signed by a house with a collector following, Cartier, Boucheron, Tiffany, Georg Jensen, Bulgari and similar. Georgian, Victorian, Art Nouveau or Art Deco with intact original workmanship. Gem-set where the stones carry the value, particularly good coloured stones and old-cut diamonds. A rare date, low mintage or proof coin, where numismatic premium sits well above bullion content. A complete suite or a signed and boxed piece with provenance. A quality watch, which is a separate market again.

If an item arriving here looks like it belongs in that list, we say so in writing rather than folding it into a scrap figure, and the free tracked return exists so you can take it to a saleroom instead. That is the correct outcome when it applies. See collectable and specialist items and selling gold coins.

When auction is the wrong route

Auction is a poor fit for broken chain, single earrings, bent or damaged pieces, unmarked oddments, dental gold, mixed-carat scrap and thin plated items. There is no collector demand, so the lot either fails to sell or is grouped and sold at or below its metal content, after which the commission and lot fees still apply. A saleroom will usually tell you this themselves if you ask; the good ones do.

It is also a poor fit when you need the money on a known date. Probate administration, a house move or a bill with a deadline does not sit comfortably with "it will be in the November sale, settlement four weeks later, unless it does not sell".

The useful hybrid: use the metal figure as your floor

The two routes are not mutually exclusive and the strongest approach uses both. Get an assayed, written metal valuation first. That number is the worst case for the piece, because nothing collectable is worth less than what it is made of. Then take that figure to the saleroom and use it to set a sensible reserve, and to judge whether the estimate justifies the wait and the fees.

A written GoldPaid valuation shows the purity found, the weight and the figure, and is free to obtain and free to decline. You can use it exactly this way, as a floor to negotiate against, and that is a legitimate use of it.

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