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Step 1
Educate yourself on key terms that will bring buyers to your auction
Use "scrap" if you are selling broken jewelry. Put "scrap" into the title along with the weight in grams our ounces and the percent gold (10K, 14K, 18K, 24K) information. By listing as scrap, you will eliminate the jewelry shoppers from your target audience. Be very careful to list weight and percent gold correctly. The buyer will be testing the gold with a gold tester and weighing it as soon as they receive it. If you have some scrap that is 10K and some that is 14K, list those seperately by weight.
"Wearable" refers to gold you are selling as jewelry. In this case you should look for auctions for pieces simlar to your and research popular terms for the type of gold (omega necklace, snake chain) and how they are listed (Omega necklace, 4mm, 17 inches). Use that format to describe your jewelry. -
Step 2
Do some research to make sure you are correctly describing your gold.
Take your gold to three different jewelry and/or pawn shops for them to weigh the gold and offer you a price. The offers will probably differ widely based on the buyers interest and the price of gold for that day.
Of course, look at completed items for the two weeks prior to your listing so that you can get an idea of the current pricing on eBay. If you find low gold prices, watch the gold index, watch completed listings to see the prices rise before you sell your gold.
This will give you an idea of starting bid for the auction, whether to set a reserve or selling it as a 'buy it now'. -
Step 3
Understand how gold is priced.
The formula for pricing gold is:
(troy ounces) x (percent gold) x (price per ounce based on gold price index) = price of your gold.
Look online for calculators that can help you with this information. The calculators do the conversions required to change from 14K to percent gold (58.3333). This means that with the calculator you are able to just read the imprint on the gold, weigh it on a gram scale and have it calculated. Remember to do this very close to the time that the gold is being sold because the variable that changes frequently in this equation is the Gold Price Index or, in other words, the going rate on the international gold market which can fluctuate daily. -
Step 4
Conditions of sale
The risk, of course, is that you will get scammed by the gold buyer. You may want to chat on the eBay jewelry group to find out problems that others have had. Ways you can decrease your risk when selling gold include paying to get an appraisal from a reputable jeweler then scan the appraisal into the auction as one of your pictures. Always require Shipping Insurance when you set up the auction. Require buyer signature on delivery. -
Step 5
Evaluate the Buyer
Do you homework to investigate who is bidding on your auction. Google their information. Look at their feedback. Do they have a very high rating with no disputes? Are they an experienced gold jewelry or gold scrap buyer that is not cheating the sellers? Even one dispute on gold or jewelry purchasing can indicate trouble for you. Some of the trouble that buyers can inflict on the seller include disputing the weight of the scrap gold saying they received less than what was auctioned, returning the scrap gold with less than what was shipped to them. The auction sites usually defer to the buyer in disputes. All of these factors weigh in the decision on who and how to sell your gold.
