A straight answer on where to sell gold and silver, what you should actually get paid, and the questions to ask before you hand anything over to anyone.
Since 2011 I've worked on more than $500 million in transactions, and the call I take most often isn't from someone who wants to buy gold. It's from someone who already has it. An inherited coin collection. A tube of silver rounds bought twenty years ago. A drawer of scrap jewelry nobody wants to wear. The question is almost always the same: what is this worth, and who do I trust to tell me?
That's a fair question, and the honest answer is that where you sell matters just as much as what you're selling. The same ten American Silver Eagles can bring wildly different money depending on who you walk them in to. Here's how the options really compare.
Do Banks Buy Gold and Silver?
This is the first thing people ask, so let's settle it: almost never. With very few exceptions, U.S. banks do not buy gold coins, silver coins, or bullion from the public. They aren't set up to test purity, they don't carry the insurance for it, and they have no resale channel. A teller may be kind about it, but the answer is going to be no.
The same goes for most brokerage firms. If your bank pointed you here, that's exactly why: selling physical metal requires a dealer who handles physical metal every day.
Where to Sell Gold and Silver: Your Real Options
- Pawn shops. Fast and everywhere, and almost always the lowest offer. A pawn shop is pricing for a quick flip and for the risk that it can't identify what it's holding. Convenient, expensive.
- Local jewelers. Better than a pawn shop for scrap jewelry, but most jewelers value metal by melt weight alone. If you hand them a collectible coin, you'll likely be paid as though it were scrap.
- Mail-in "cash for gold" companies. You ship your metal to a stranger, they set the price after it's already in their building, and your leverage is gone. Some are legitimate. The business model still favors them.
- Local coin shops. A genuine step up. A good coin dealer knows what a Morgan dollar is versus a generic round. Offers vary a lot shop to shop, and a small shop's cash on hand can cap what it's able to pay you on a larger lot.
- Precious metals brokers. A broker prices off the live market, works from real buy-side demand rather than a display case, and can handle size. This is where larger positions and better coins generally get their strongest bid.
I'm not going to pretend I'm neutral, because we're in that last category. But you don't have to take my word for any of it: call two or three of these and compare. A dealer who's confident in their number won't mind being one of the calls you make. Ours is (833) 425-3269.
What Actually Determines Your Payout
- Live spot price. Gold and silver move all day. Any honest quote is tied to the market at the moment you agree, not to a number posted last week.
- Weight and purity. A one-ounce American Gold Eagle contains a full troy ounce of gold. Fourteen-karat jewelry is a little over half gold by weight. Those are very different conversations.
- Form matters more than people expect. Recognized government bullion (American Eagles, Buffalos, Canadian Maple Leafs) sells closest to spot because any dealer can verify it instantly. Generic bars, private rounds, and scrap carry wider spreads.
- Collector value. Some coins are worth meaningfully more than their metal. If nobody looks for that, you'll never be paid for it, which is the single most common way sellers lose money.
- The spread. Every buyer pays under spot; that difference is how the business works. What separates a fair dealer from a bad one isn't whether there's a spread, it's whether they'll tell you what it is.
The Most Expensive Mistake I See Sellers Make
Taking the first offer without knowing what's in the box. I've talked to people who were about to sell a collection for melt value that carried real numismatic premiums, and to others who were quoted a "great price" that was quietly eight percent under the market. Both walked away from real money, and neither would have known it.
A second opinion costs you a phone call. If you're holding something and you're not sure, get it looked at before it leaves your hands. We'll give you an honest read on what you have and what it should bring, and if someone else has already offered you more, we'll tell you to take it.
What to Have Ready Before You Call
You don't need to be an expert. Five minutes of prep gets you a real number on the first call instead of a vague one:
- A rough count of what you have (how many coins, bars, or pieces).
- Any markings you can read: the year, the country, "1 oz," ".999," "14K," or a mint name.
- Whether the items are loose, tubed, or in graded plastic holders from PCGS or NGC.
- A photo or two on your phone, which is often all a specialist needs.
- Whether you want cash, or want to trade into different metal.
With that in hand, one call to (833) 425-3269 is usually enough to get you a working range. No appraisal fee, no obligation, and no one is going to pressure you into a decision on the spot.
A Lot of Sellers Don't Want Cash. They Want Better Metal.
This surprises people, but it's common. Someone inherits a mixed lot of jewelry and generic rounds and would rather hold recognized bullion that's easy to value and easy to sell later. Trading up costs less than selling and rebuying separately, and you can see what we'd trade into on our precious metals page.
Others use the proceeds to open a retirement account backed by physical metal. If that's you, a Gold IRA holds IRS-approved coins in an insured depository inside a tax-advantaged account, and an eligible 401(k) or IRA can be rolled over free of tax penalties. If you'd rather keep it simple and just hold metal at home, direct delivery ships fully insured to your door. We'll walk you through both and let you pick.
Selling Locally, or From Anywhere in the Country
We're headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, and plenty of our business is people driving in from around the state and the region: Omaha, Sioux Falls, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, the Quad Cities. If you're nearby, you can sell gold and silver locally here in Des Moines and handle it face to face.
If you're not, distance changes nothing. We work with clients in all fifty states, and metal moves both directions fully insured with signature confirmation. Where you live shouldn't decide what you get paid.
The Bottom Line
Selling gold or silver isn't complicated, but it is easy to do badly, and almost always for the same reason: the seller didn't know what they had and asked only one person. Ask a few. Ask what the spread is. Ask whether anyone actually looked at the coins or just weighed them.
If you want that conversation with someone who'll give you a straight answer either way, we're one call away at (833) 425-3269. You will not find a more honest and transparent company to work with than Heartland Capital, and we're happy to earn that the hard way: by being one of the three calls you make.