Selling 18-carat gold: from €56 to €63 per gram

Selling inherited gold: from €56 to €63 per gram depending on who buys it

Some inherited bracelets that nobody has ever worn, a purity assumed to be 18 carats, and an awkward question: who do you sell them to? Calls to several shops in Valencia return offers of between €56 and €58 per gram. A company that buys remotely, with home collection or postal shipping, offers 61.3. A buyer willing to travel and meet in person goes up to 63. Same piece of jewellery, same carat rating, and four different prices depending on which door you walk through.

How much do they pay per gram of 18-carat gold?

The range is the first surprise. Between €56 and €58 in neighbourhood shops, 61.3 from a remote buyer and 63 in an in-person deal. On that basis, one participant suggests a rule of thumb: the buyer has to make a profit, so a reasonable price sits at the value of the metal at that moment minus a percentage, in the region of 7%, which the buyer keeps. Selling above that benchmark is difficult; below it, you are giving away margin.

Whether the buyer is a specialist or a generalist also moves the figure. One participant recounts a case with coins: against the €1,200 offered by a gold-buying shop, a specialist paid 1,600, even though the pieces had no collector's value, only that of the metal itself. The conclusion drawn is simple: a valuation is mainly useful to find out the real carat rating and weight, even if you then turn down the offer.

The risk of selling to a private individual or mailing a package

The second-hand marketplace route has few defenders, and the argument against it is not the price, it is safety. Some rule out that option because of the risk of turning up to a meeting with strangers carrying the jewellery and ending up robbed.

Postal shipments are not reassuring either. The pieces travel, are checked at their destination, and only then does the real offer arrive, which may fall short of what was expected. The alternative suggested by another participant is a transaction in a premises open to the public, even if it pays a little less: you lose money, you gain peace of mind.

In metal trading groups, the same pattern of alleged scams keeps recurring, according to those who trinc that market.

Do you have to pay tax when selling inherited gold?

If the amount is paid by bank transfer, there is a record and Hacienda (the Spanish tax authority) can ask for explanations, it is pointed out in the thread. The sale is taxed as a capital gain under IRPF (Spanish personal income tax), and the applicable rate depends on your total annual income, not on a fixed percentage that can be anticipated without further details.

The big problem is the lack of invoices. Without proof of the acquisition value of inherited jewellery, the criterion applied treats everything received as a gain, not just the profit. One participant calls this unfair.

The thread raises selling little by little to be paid in cash, or all at once if they pay more. If the money ends up in an account to pay the deposit on a flat, it would have to be accounted for.

Stones, carats and the discount nobody shows you

Purity cannot be guessed. According to one of the participants, 18-carat jewellery has the 750 hallmark engraved somewhere.

Set stones, such as aquamarine or turquoise, add nothing if they are not genuine: their weight is deducted by eye, estimating how much they might weigh.

With these ranges —56, 58, 61.3, 63—, the same inherited bracelet is worth a different amount depending on who you show it to. Gold has an objective market price. The jewellery, however, is paid for according to the discount each buyer decides to apply to themselves.