Sell gold in London by post, or in Hatton Garden?

Selling in London: Hatton Garden or the post?

Hatton Garden, in Holborn, is London’s jewellery quarter, with nearly 300 businesses in the jewellery trade and more than 90 shops. If you want to hand a piece over in person and collect several counter quotes in one afternoon, that is where to go.

Posting to GoldPaid suits a different seller: someone who would rather not carry valuables across London, wants every item listed in writing with its tested purity, or needs time to show the offer to family or an executor before deciding. You can do both. Ask for an indicative figure from photos on WhatsApp first, and you have a number to hold against any counter quote.

Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used. GoldPaid can confirm the appropriate postal option before you post. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.

GoldPaid has no shop or counter in Hatton Garden or anywhere else in London. We have also published a sourced comparison with one well-known Hatton Garden dealer: GoldPaid and Hatton Garden Metals compared.

The leopard’s head on London pieces

London’s town mark is the leopard’s head. A statute of 1300 required gold and silver to meet a set standard and to be marked with it, and in 1478 the Goldsmiths’ Company set up the country’s first assay office at Goldsmiths’ Hall, which still operates today.

The mark tells you where a piece was tested, not where it was bought, and a London family can own pieces marked in Birmingham, Sheffield or Edinburgh. The detail that matters when you sell is the date letter beside the town mark. Period work, signed maker pieces and unusual settings are checked for collector value, and where that value looks likely to exceed the metal content we tell you rather than buying it on weight. How to read the London leopard’s head and the date letter chart explain both.

22ct gold and pieces bought abroad

Gold stamped 916 is 22ct: every gram holds 0.916g of fine gold, about 2.4 times the gold in a gram of 9ct, so the same weight of 22ct holds far more fine gold than 9ct. A piece bought abroad without a UK hallmark is valued the same way. The XRF reading sets the carat, your offer reflects the weight and purity we measure and the live precious-metal market, and stones or enamel are separated from the gold weight line by line on the offer.

If you would rather sell in person, Green Street in Newham is a regional shopping centre for jewellery, food and fabrics, and Southall is one of the largest South Asian shopping areas in London. If you would rather not take family pieces to a counter, or you want an itemised offer to share with relatives first, post them instead. How GoldPaid values 22ct Indian gold.

What happens, from first message to payment

1. A photo and a question. Send photos of your gold or silver on WhatsApp. We reply with a quick indicative figure and answer whatever you want to know.
2. A prepaid label, on request. Ask for the label when you are ready. We send a free Royal Mail Special Delivery label, tracked and signed for, or a QR code for the Post Office counter.
3. You post it. Any padded envelope is fine, posted whenever you choose.
4. We assess and write it up. Weighing and an XRF assay produce a written, itemised offer for you to read at home, usually on the working day your parcel arrives.
5. Your decision. Accept for payment by Faster Payments, or decline for a free, tracked, signed-for return.

Your parcel is signed for on arrival and opened at our Bristol office, where each item is weighed and XRF-tested before the written offer is prepared.

The 32 London boroughs and the City of London, all covered by post

London postcodes

London is covered by eight inner postcode areas, E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W and WC, with the outer boroughs reaching into BR, CR, DA, EN, HA, IG, KT, RM, SM, TW and UB. Royal Mail does not route Special Delivery differently between them, so a parcel handed in at a Post Office counter in any London postcode is handled the same way.

Check your branch’s opening hours on the Post Office branch finder, and keep the counter receipt: it carries the tracking number.

What GoldPaid buys from London sellers

What backs the offer up

• XRF spectrometry on every item, not a counter estimate
• A written, itemised breakdown before you decide anything
• Free tracked postage in, free tracked return out
• No countdowns, no pressure, no fabricated reviews
• An owner-run business whose founder, Rocco Clayfield, answers questions himself

Common questions