Rough estimates where possible; your final offer follows inspection.
No obligation. Free tracked return if you decline. We aim to pay within one working hour of acceptance.
GoldPaid buys gold rings by post from anywhere in the UK: wedding bands, signet rings, dress rings and rings that no longer fit, 9ct to 22ct, with or without stones. Send a photo first, then post with a free prepaid Royal Mail label. Each ring is weighed, XRF-tested and listed on a written offer. Stones are left out of the gold weight, and a valuable stone is valued on its own line.
Send a photo on WhatsApp for a rough estimate where possible, or arrange to post your items for assessment. We confirm our purchase offer after inspection, and you decide whether to accept. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.
Free Special Delivery label, usually within 30 minutesPurity tested in-house by X-ray (XRF)
Is one gold ring worth posting?Often yes, and it costs nothing to find out. The label is free, the return is free if you decline, and there is no minimum weight or value. Send a photograph on WhatsApp first if you want a sense of it before committing to the postage at all.
Please send us photos on WhatsApp, and we will help you.
Send photos of your items and any hallmarks. We give a rough estimate where possible; your final offer follows inspection. You do not need to arrange postage to ask us a question.
We arrange postage with you after our conversation.
Before you post
The questions people ask before they send anything, answered here rather than at the end of the page.
Can I ask first?
Yes. WhatsApp a photo to 07944 014111, 8am to 9pm, every day, and we reply with an idea of what it is worth. Nothing is posted until you decide.
Is it safe to post?
Your parcel travels by Royal Mail Special Delivery, tracked and signed for. 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.
How is it tested?
Your parcel is signed for on arrival and opened at our Bristol office, where each item is weighed and tested with an XRF analyser, an X-ray test that reads the metal without marking it. Your written offer lists each piece with its weight, purity and figure.
What if I say no?
We return everything by Royal Mail Special Delivery at our cost. Saying no costs you nothing.
When am I paid?
Only if you accept the written offer. We aim for the money to reach your bank within 24 hours of posting. We use Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed, test your items promptly on receipt, and aim to pay by Faster Payments within one working hour of your acceptance. The 24-hour target is an aim, not a guarantee: it depends on posting before the local cut-off, the applicable working-day delivery service, prompt acceptance, completed identity checks and bank processing.
How long does an offer last?
Each written offer is dated and holds for a limited time, because metal prices move. If it lapses, we re-run it at that day’s rate.
Who am I dealing with?
GOLDPAID LTD, registered in England and Wales, run by founder Rocco Clayfield. Our office is at Unit 217, Bristol Business Centre, 179 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8 2AG. We are postal only, so there is no counter to visit. Before we pay, we ask every seller for a photo of their passport or driving licence.
Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.
Start with a question, not a parcel
The first step is a conversation, not a commitment. Send a photo of your gold rings on WhatsApp, or call, and you will get a rough estimate and a straight answer to anything you want to ask. You decide what happens next.
Because GoldPaid works entirely by post across the UK, you do all of this from home, in your own time. No shop, no queue, and nobody watching over your shoulder while you think.
How much a ring actually weighs, and why that surprises people
Rings feel heavier in the hand than they are on the scales. A slim ladies' wedding band is typically 1.5 g to 2.5 g. A gents' band runs 3 g to 6 g. A heavy signet ring can reach 8 g to 15 g, and a thin stacking ring or a child’s ring can come in under a gram. Rings are easy to misjudge by hand.
That cuts both ways. A single slim band can come to less than you hope, and a chunky signet that has sat in a drawer since a grandfather died can come to more. Weight and purity multiply together, so a 12 g 9ct signet holds 4.5 g of fine gold while a 2 g 18ct band holds 1.5 g. The signet holds roughly three times the fine gold of the band despite the lower carat.
There is no minimum here. A single ring is weighed, tested and offered in writing exactly like a full parcel, and there is no fee at any stage. Whether it is worth the trouble is a fair question, and the fastest way to answer it is a photograph.
Stones, and what happens to them
A great many rings have something set in them, and a great many of those stones are cubic zirconia, paste or synthetic rather than diamond. Metal is bought on assayed weight, so stones are removed from the calculation rather than weighed in with the gold. Weighing a piece of glass in with the gold would overstate the metal and understate the offer, which helps nobody.
Where a stone has genuine value it is assessed on its own and appears as a separate line, and where it does not, it is returned to you with the setting or with the parcel. Nothing is quietly kept. Our page on diamonds and gemstones sets out exactly how that works, including what happens to stones we cannot value.
Unhallmarked rings, worn hallmarks and rings that are not gold
Ring hallmarks live on the inside of the shank, which is precisely where decades of wear rubs them away. A ring with no readable mark is not a problem: the XRF reading establishes purity directly from the metal without relying on a stamp at all, which is the main practical reason we test rather than eyeball.
UK law only requires a hallmark above a threshold weight, 1 gram for gold, so plenty of genuine light rings were never marked in the first place. The opposite case also turns up: rings stamped 18K that read as plated base metal under XRF. We tell you either way, and if a ring is plated we return it rather than buying it, because there is not enough recoverable gold in plating to be worth anyone’s time. Our what we don’t buy page is explicit about this.
Wedding and engagement rings, if that is what this is about
Some gold rings are sold at the end of a marriage. We do not need to know that and will not ask. The process is the same, and it is deliberately unhurried: there is no follow-up sequence, no chaser, and no phone call trying to close you. If you send a parcel and then decide you want it back before accepting, you get it back.
Where a ring may be worth more as jewellery than as metal (a period piece, a signed designer ring, a significant stone) we say so rather than buying it as scrap. There is a fuller discussion on selling gold after divorce, on wedding rings specifically, and on the band-format variants at wedding bands (court fit, flat fit, two-tone). Stone-set anniversary and eternity pieces sit under eternity rings, and full sovereigns in ring mounts have their own dedicated page on sovereign rings. Foreign-hallmarked rings (Turkish 916, Dubai 875 21ct, Italian 750, Indian BIS 916) are handled on foreign gold.
Four moving parts, all visible
You ask, we steer. WhatsApp us photos of your gold rings; you get a rough estimate and no pressure to go further.
We send the label. A free Royal Mail Special Delivery label arrives, tracked and signed for, with a QR-code option if you cannot print.
You post when ready. No countdown. Use whatever padded packaging you already have.
We test, you decide. We weigh and XRF-assay every item, then send you the written offer, usually on the working day your parcel arrives. Accept it for a Faster Payments transfer, or decline it for a free tracked 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.
How much is my gold ring worth?
The short answerA gold ring is priced on solid gold weight at its assayed carat. A plain 9ct or 18ct wedding band usually weighs 2-8g. A dress ring runs 3-10g depending on the setting. Cluster and eternity rings often look heavy but a large share of the gross is stones and claws. 22ct wedding bands are lighter than they feel: 3-6g is typical. Signed or antique pieces are quoted through a specialist route where the maker’s value beats the scrap value.
Typical weights for gold rings
These are typical ranges only. Real gold rings vary widely: band width and depth, setting style, stone count and any resizing all move the weight. Every offer comes from weighing your own items when they arrive, not from a table.
Style
Typical weight
Notes
Plain 9ct or 18ct wedding band
2–8 g
Dress ring, 9ct/18ct with small stones
3–10 g
Cluster or eternity ring, 9ct/18ct
3–12 g
Stones can be 30-60% of gross weight; the payable gold weight is net of them.
22ct wedding band
3–6 g
Signet ring, solid 9ct/18ct
8–20 g
What your gold ring could come to
There is no set price and no calculator here: every offer comes from weighing and XRF-testing your own gold rings when they arrive. Send a photo on WhatsApp for a rough estimate where we can give one, or read how we assess your gold. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.
What can move the figure up or down
Signed pieces (Cartier, Tiffany, Boodles, Bulgari and similar) and antique or period rings often carry a maker or design value well above the scrap price. We flag those, quote both figures side by side and tell you when a specialist buyer will pay more, so you can pick the higher number.
Rhodium-plated white gold is priced on the underlying carat, not the plating.
Stones stay in the setting unless you instruct otherwise in writing, and are valued on their own line under our written diamond and gemstone policy.
Cover in transit
The prepaid label is Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed: full tracking and a signature on delivery. 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. For higher-value items, please message us first so the parcel can be split across more than one prepaid label before it travels. Postage and cover explains it fully. If a parcel is lost on its way to us, the compensation claim goes to Royal Mail from you, the sender, using your Post Office receipt, and we give you our tracking records and help you make it. Lost parcels, step by step.
If the offer is not for you
Then nothing happens except a free return. We send your items back by tracked, signed-for post at our cost, with no fee for declining and no follow-up. A valuation is only worth having if you can turn it down freely, so you can. See what happens if I decline the offer.
The written offer is dated and holds for a limited time, because metal prices move. If it lapses before you decide, we re-run it against the live precious-metal market on the day, at no charge. You can also accept part of a parcel and decline the rest, with no minimum and no penalty for splitting it.
Payment, once you accept
When you say yes to the written offer, GoldPaid aims to pay by Faster Payments bank transfer within one working hour of your acceptance, to your nominated account. You give those details only at the point you accept, never as a condition of getting an offer.
Why sell by post with GoldPaid
Three differences from a counter sale. You see a measured valuation in writing, not a verbal estimate. You decide at home, with nobody waiting. And if you decline, the return is free, tracked and signed for, so obtaining the valuation costs you nothing.
What decides your offer
Every parcel is opened at our Bristol office and each piece is handled on its own. Nothing is averaged across the parcel.
Weight. Each item is weighed on scales. Stones, steel springs, non-gold clasps and cores are not paid as gold. The written breakdown explains the payable metal weight for each item, rather than treating everything on the scales as precious metal.
Purity. Each item is tested with an XRF analyser, which reads the metals at the points tested without marking the item. A surface reading alone cannot establish the composition of a plated or filled piece. Hallmarks, construction and different components all need to be considered alongside the test.
The market on the day. Gold and silver are priced against the live precious-metal market at the time your parcel is assessed, not at the time you posted.
Condition and intact value. Broken is fine and does not reduce a metal offer. Where a piece is worth more intact (a named maker, a collectable coin, a locket with provenance) we tell you before testing, so you can choose.
Anything that is not gold or silver. Plated, rolled-gold and base-metal items are listed on the offer at nothing and returned to you free. We never quietly keep them.
Why we do not publish a per-gram price list. A single printed rate hides the things that change the figure: hollow versus solid, stones, mixed carats in one bag, a mark that does not match the metal. We would rather show you the weight, the tested purity and the figure for each item, in writing, and let you decide. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market.
What you see before you decide. A written, itemised offer by WhatsApp or email: every item, its weight, its tested purity, and its figure. Accept and we aim to pay by bank transfer within one working hour. Decline and the whole parcel comes back by Royal Mail Special Delivery at our cost. No fee, no deduction, no questions.
Yes. The XRF assay establishes purity from the metal itself, so a missing or worn hallmark makes no difference to whether we can value it. UK law only requires a hallmark on gold items above 1 gram, so many genuine light rings were never marked.
Do I have to remove the stones first?
No, and please do not try. Removing stones without the right tools damages both the stone and the setting. Send the ring as it is; stones are dealt with separately and either valued on their own line or returned to you.
Do you buy 9ct rings, or only higher carats?
We buy 9ct through to 24ct. Nine carat has been a legal British standard since 1854 and is the carat most British rings were made in. Each carat is assessed on its own rather than blended into a single average for the parcel, and every line appears separately on the written offer.
What if my ring turns out to be plated?
We tell you and we send it back. Gold-plated and rolled-gold rings hold too little recoverable gold to buy, and we would rather return one ring than have you find that out from a lower-than-expected total with no explanation.
How quickly am I paid if I accept?
By bank transfer. We aim to release payment by Faster Payments within one working hour of your acceptance of the written offer. We do not pay in cash at any value, and we do not pay by cheque.
Not the question you had? The full GoldPaid FAQ covers the rest, from postal cover and ID checks to what happens if you decline the offer.
Speak to us before you post
Please send us photos on WhatsApp, and we will help you. We give a rough estimate where possible and arrange postage with you after our conversation. Your final offer follows inspection.
A clear photograph on WhatsApp is usually enough for us to tell you whether something is worth posting. No obligation, no follow-up pressure, and no figure guaranteed before it has been tested.
