Almost everyone has a little pile of it somewhere. A chain that snapped years ago. One earring from a pair, the other lost on some beach. A ring bent out of shape, or a charm bracelet missing half its charms. It sits in a dish or a drawer because it feels like it should be fixed, and fixing it never makes the to-do list.
Here's the thing most people don't realize: that pile is worth almost exactly what it would be worth if every piece were in perfect shape.
When a piece of jewellery is bought as scrap, nobody is buying the design. They're buying the metal. A snapped 14K chain and an unbroken 14K chain of the same weight contain the same amount of gold. The break doesn't remove any of it.
That's why we weigh pieces rather than admire them. If something is worth more as jewellery, for example a well-made vintage piece or a premium brand, that's a different conversation. But for ordinary broken pieces, it's the gold content that sets the price.
It helps to know the maths, because then no offer ever feels like a mystery. Two things matter: weight and karat.
Karat tells you how much of the piece is pure gold. Roughly:
So take a snapped 14K chain that weighs 5 grams. Multiply 5 by 0.585 and you get roughly 2.9 grams of pure gold. That's the figure the value is built on. You then apply the day's gold price to it. We post our buying prices on the What We Pay page, so you can do this sum at home before you ever book.
Not sure what karat a piece is? Look for a tiny stamp near the clasp or inside the band. Our guide to reading the markings on gold jewellery explains the numbers you'll see. If there's no stamp at all, that doesn't mean it isn't gold. Plenty of older and handmade pieces were never marked, and we can test them.
This is the mistake we'd most like to save people from. Someone takes a broken chain to a jeweller, pays to have it soldered, and then brings it to us thinking it's now worth more. It isn't. The gold weighs the same as before, and the repair has just cost money. Solder can even slightly lower the overall purity of a small section.
Unless you plan to wear the piece again, leave it broken. Same goes for polishing and cleaning. A pile of tarnished, tangled scrap is fine as it is.
Bring all of it, including the pieces you think are worthless. Odd earrings, tangled chains, a bent wedding band, a bracelet clasp on its own. Small bits add up faster than you'd expect, and the things people nearly leave behind are sometimes the ones that surprise them.
A few practical notes:
You come in, we go through your items one at a time, and we check any unmarked pieces with testing. Then we weigh each category and show you how the offer is worked out. If it doesn't suit you, you take your gold home. There's no obligation. If you do go ahead, payment is the same day, cash or e-transfer. If you want a fuller picture of what happens in the room, we've written it up in what to expect during a gold evaluation appointment.
One practical point: we work by appointment only, and every seller needs valid government-issued photo ID and has to be 18 or older.
Almost certainly, yes. You don't have to fix it, clean it, or even know exactly what it is. Gather it up, put it in a bag, and call us.
Five Star Gold Exchange is at #230 – 1140 Austin Ave in Coquitlam, and we see people from across the Lower Mainland, from Burnaby and Surrey to Langley and Abbotsford. Call 604-779-2755 or email info@fsge.ca to book a time.
Five Star Gold Exchange — Coquitlam, BC | By Appointment Only
#230 – 1140 Austin Ave, Coquitlam, BC | View Live Prices at fsge.ca