Sell platinum by post across the UK

No pressure to begin with

Asking commits you to nothing. A WhatsApp message with a couple of photos of your platinum gets you a rough estimate and a straight answer to any question. Whether you post anything is your call, made later.

GoldPaid has no high-street branches. It is postal-only and UK-wide, so you never have to travel.

Platinum we buy

• Platinum rings, including engagement and wedding bands
• Platinum chains, bracelets and earrings
• Platinum bullion bars and coins
• Palladium rings, jewellery and bullion, bought the same way and XRF-assayed alongside platinum
• Hallmarked and unhallmarked platinum
• Broken and worn platinum pieces, condition does not matter

UK platinum is usually hallmarked 950 (95% pure), though you may also see 850, 900 or 999. Platinum is dense and white, and is sometimes mistaken for white gold or silver, the XRF assay tells the two apart for certain. If you are unsure what you have, send a photo of the marks on WhatsApp.

UK platinum marks: 950, 900, 850 and 999

Platinum has been covered by UK hallmarking since 1975 and is marked by fineness, parts per thousand of pure platinum, rather than by carat. Four standards are recognised. The metals alloyed alongside the platinum, usually ruthenium, iridium, cobalt or copper, change how a piece wears rather than what the metal is worth.

A stamp is a claim, a hallmark is evidence, an assay is proof. Errors run both ways: imported white metal stamped PLAT that is not platinum, and genuine platinum carrying no mark at all because the shank was resized or the mark has worn away. Neither is a problem here, as the assay settles it before any figure is quoted. The gold hallmark guide explains how UK marks are laid out.

Platinum, white gold or palladium

These three white metals are confused constantly, and the difference is money. White gold is gold, valued at its carat, alloyed white with palladium, nickel or silver and usually rhodium-plated to keep it bright. Palladium is a precious metal in its own right, hallmarked 500, 950 or 999 in the UK since 2010, and lighter in the hand. Platinum is the densest of the three: roughly 20 g/cm³ for 950 platinum against 15 to 16 g/cm³ for 18ct white gold, so the same ring made in platinum weighs around a quarter to a third more, and it stays white without plating. With wear, white gold turns faintly yellow as its rhodium plate thins, while platinum dulls to a soft pewter-like patina without changing colour.

Home checks only take you so far. A white ring that has gone faintly warm-toned around the shoulders is usually rhodium-plated white gold with the plating worn through. The XRF assay settles it non-destructively, reading the elemental signature of the alloy itself to tell platinum from white gold, palladium, silver and steel without scratching, filing or acid. If a ring sold to you as platinum reads as 18ct white gold, you are told plainly and it is valued as 18ct gold.

What is not platinum, and what not to post

Nothing needs cleaning or taking apart. Stones can stay set, and platinum can travel in the same parcel as gold and silver, it is sorted by metal before weighing. What is worth knowing before you post is which white metals hold no melt value.

• Platinum-plated and rhodium-plated base metal, where the white layer is a few microns thick and holds little recoverable value
• Titanium, tungsten carbide, cobalt-chrome and stainless-steel wedding bands, which look the part but contain no precious metal
• White-metal costume jewellery and fashion pieces sold as platinum-colour
• Sterling silver marked 925 or with a lion passant, which looks much like platinum to the eye but reads plainly as silver under XRF, still worth sending, but valued at the silver rate

Anything that turns out not to be gold, silver, platinum or palladium is identified and returned with anything else you decline, at no cost. See what we buy if you are unsure.

Why platinum and gold prices differ

Platinum is not simply a dearer version of gold. It trades on its own market, driven largely by industrial demand, autocatalysts, chemical and glass plant, laboratory equipment, where gold is driven by investment and central-bank buying. The two metals can move in opposite directions in the same week, and platinum has spent long periods trading below gold despite a far smaller annual mine supply.

Two things follow for a seller. Platinum jewellery is typically 95% pure, against 75% for 18ct and 37.5% for 9ct gold, so nearly all of its weight is platinum. Against that, the platinum market is thinner than the gold market, so prices move sharply and a figure quoted last month tells you little today. GoldPaid does not publish a platinum rate. Mixed-construction pieces, a platinum head on a white gold shank, or a repair made with a different solder, are assayed part by part rather than averaged.

How the offer is worked out

Every piece is weighed and XRF-tested, and the written offer shows the reading, the weight and the figure before you decide anything.

Platinum is weighed and XRF-assayed to confirm purity, and offered in writing. Platinum and white gold look similar but are different metals worth different amounts; the XRF assay removes any doubt.

One parcel gets one written figure, itemised piece by piece. Any gold or silver jewellery in it is priced on the weight and purity we measure and the live precious-metal market, with our margin already inside the figure.

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.

Who this helps

This page is for rings from a marriage that has ended, for inherited white-metal jewellery nobody can identify, and for holders of platinum bullion who want a plain postal sale. Platinum, palladium, white gold and silver all look alike in a drawer. XRF tells them apart, and each metal is shown on its own line in the written offer.

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.

What we do not buy, and the ID we ask for

What we pay nothing for. Plated white metal is not platinum, and GoldPaid pays nothing for it as precious metal. Any such pieces in your parcel are listed at nil on the written valuation and returned free of charge by tracked post, whether you accept the offer on the rest or decline it. White gold and palladium are bought, and the XRF reading tells them apart from platinum. The full list, and where those items can go instead, is on what we don’t buy.

ID and ownership checks. Every seller sends a photograph of UK photo ID, a passport or a driving licence, whatever the parcel is worth. We check the name and address on the Royal Mail label against the name on the bank account, and ask you to confirm that the items are yours to sell. GoldPaid only buys from sellers aged 18 or over. Why we check, and what the law does and does not require, is set out on payments, cash and money-laundering rules.

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.

Common questions