Gold for sale!

October 13, 2022 6:02 AM

UK. Who/where/how do I sell a gold sovereign without getting fleeced?

I need to raise a bit of cash. I have a George V gold sovereign (London minted) and I'm considering selling it. However, I don't trust the pages Google is finding for me. They all seem a bit scammy.

What is the best way to sell the coin in the UK without being ripped off?

posted by popcassady to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Gold prices tend to be consistent among gold/bullion dealers as the pricing ties to the global value, at least this has been my experience buying and selling in two separate countries.

A quick look revealed Chards, who appear to have been in this business a fair amount of time and also appear to be quite reputable.

Comparing their price of this coin to a dealer that I have done business with previously, looks to be favorable.
posted by wile e at 6:13 AM on October 13, 2022

Ask on the r/coins subreddit: they are a cheerfully nerdy group, and folks often show up asking very similar questions to yours.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:24 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hatton Garden in London has several gold dealers where you can buy and sell gold at a very good price.
posted by Lanark at 11:29 AM on October 13, 2022

I had valued and then sold some wartime Jersey (Channel Islands) banknotes at auction through London Coins, their service was excellent throughout. A search on their site for sovereign + year should help you find recent auction prices and may tip you off if there are any rare, higher valued mintings from the year of your coin to be aware of.
posted by protorp at 12:08 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

In fact looking back over communication, London Coins advised me before any commitment to sell that 2 quite tatty "Bradbury" Bank of England 1 pound / 10 shilling treasury notes, which were alongside the pristine and superficially more unusual Jersey notes that my grandfather had kept for decades in a "worth something someday" envelope, were actually from quite scarce printing series and worth putting up for auction individually. They ended up going for 3 - 4 times the usual for those notes.

As a completely ignorant seller that obviously inspired a deal of confidence in their appraisal service, which they were able to do remotely from photos.
posted by protorp at 12:34 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

I worked in a bullion shop pre-pandemic. Like several people above mentioned, we based our melt prices on the spot price of gold. As circulating coins, most of the sovereigns we saw were in such bad shape that we paid the melt value- in our case that was based on what our wholesaler paid us- we made a couple percent on those transactions. Sovereigns are "crown gold"- that is, they are a 22 karat alloy which is 91.667% gold. Melt price will be for just under 92% of the weight of you sovereign. So something like 91.667 x 7.98 grams x melt price (around 90% of the spot price in our case).

If your coin is nice enough and rare enough then there will be a price based on the collectible value instead of the spot price. If it's very very good they will probably advise you to have it graded to realize the best price.

Look for people who are transparent about pricing and can tell you exactly how they do the math. Be aware that spot prices change minute-to-minute, and what you might be paid in the morning could change by afternoon. Also: do not clean your coin! That's the fastest way to remove value from nice coins.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:21 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]