Refine or sell? What to do with scrap gold and silver
A drawer of broken chains or an inherited canteen can go two ways: sold for cash at a published price, or refined back into pure metal you keep. Both are honest; they answer different questions. Here is how to choose.
The two routes, plainly
Selling is a purchase: the dealer weighs and tests your metal, quotes a price per gram against the live London market, and pays you by bank transfer. You walk away with euro. Refining is a service: the refiner processes your metal and returns it to you pure, 999 silver or 999.9 gold, as grain or a bar, keeping a percentage of the fine content as the fee. You walk away with metal. Everything else follows from that one difference.
When selling is the right answer
Sell when the point is money: clearing an estate, funding something, or simply turning unworn jewellery into value you can use. Selling is one transaction at a knowable price; our gold and silver prices per gram are published and update through the day, so you can work out a realistic figure before you do anything. Selling is also the only sensible route for silver plate and costume pieces, which are not worth refining at all.
When refining is the right answer
Refine when the point is the metal itself. The obvious case is the trade: jewellers and casters turning bench scrap and lemel back into casting grain instead of buying fresh metal at a premium. The quieter case is personal: a family canteen that nobody polishes but nobody wants to see sold can come back as a single bar, still the same silver, in a form that will actually be kept. Refining also consolidates: mixed carats of gold from years of odds and ends come back as one uniform, pure holding.
The numbers, side by side
Take 100 g of sterling silver. Sold, it earns the published sterling price per gram on the day, paid in euro. Refined, it contains 92.5 g of fine silver; our 15 percent fee takes 13.9 g in metal, and 78.6 g of 999 silver comes back to you. Note what the fee buys: metal you own outright, in a usable pure form, with no cash charge and no invoice. But note also what it does not buy: if you refined only to sell the pure silver afterwards, you would generally end up behind simply selling the sterling in the first place. The calculators on the silver refining and gold refining pages show the exact split for your own weights, valued at the live London price.
Questions that settle it
Do you want euro or metal at the end? That answers it for most people. If metal: grain if you will work it, a bar if you will keep it. If euro: sell, and spend your effort comparing prices per gram after all deductions rather than headlines. And if you are genuinely unsure, have the lot weighed and XRF tested first — both routes start with exactly the same intake, and the fine content figure is what makes either decision an informed one.
Quick answers
Is it better to refine or sell scrap gold?
Sell if you want money: it is one transaction at a published price per gram. Refine if you want to keep the metal, as casting grain or a bar. Financially they are closer than people expect; the real question is whether you want euro or metal at the end.
Do I get more money by refining my gold first?
Usually not as a private seller. Refining returns metal, not money, so you would still have to sell the refined gold afterwards, and the refining fee plus a second transaction generally eats any premium. Refining is for keeping metal, not maximising a sale.
Can I do half and half?
Yes. Lots can be split: sell some pieces for cash at the published price and refine the rest into grain or a bar. Decide at intake, once the whole lot has been weighed and XRF tested.