If you have unwanted gold, silver, or jewelry lying around your house, you can sell it to a recycler who will give you cash for your items — and you can feel good about doing it.
Gold and diamond mining are notoriously disastrous for the environment. Global greenhouse gas emissions from gold mining alone produce more than 100 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually.1
So while making money on selling your jewelry or coin, you can also feel good about helping to preserve the Earth.
But how exactly does a gold or silver recycler work? Which precious metals recyclers are the best?
We answer these questions and more:
Where to find silver, gold and jewelry recyclers
- Why recycle silver now?
- How silver recyclers recycle silver
- Can tarnished silver be recycled?
- Other ways to repurpose or recycle silver
- What can gold be recycled into?
- How gold recyclers recycle gold
- Other ways to repurpose or recycle gold
- Is recycled gold real gold?
- Is recycled gold bad?
- Can gold jewelry with diamonds and gemstones be recycled?
Where to find silver, gold and jewelry recyclers
Depending on how quickly you want to cash in on your jewelry, you can sell to an online or local jewelry buyer:
Online silver, gold and old jewelry recycling
Unless you have high-end branded or luxury jewelry, most online jewelry buyers are interested in your jewelry for its precious metal content. They will melt down your jewelry to create new jewelry, coins, bars, or bullion.
We put together guides on where to sell gold and sell silver. We also have reviews on several of the top online jewelry buyers:
- Abe Mor (accepts gold worth at least $500 and diamonds of .50 carats or larger)
- Alloy Market (All weight and karat of gold and silver and diamonds of at least 1 carat
- CashforGoldUSA (accepts all forms/sizes of gold, silver, platinum and diamonds)
- MyGemma (only interested in branded diamond jewelry and diamonds over .50 carats)
Our No. 1 recommendation when it comes to jewelry recyclers is CashforGoldUSA, thanks to its A+ Better Business Bureau rating, 24-hour payment, fast, insured shipping, and free, insured returns — features not shared by all jewelry recyclers.
Other jewelry recyclers you can consider include:
- American Bullion (gold)
- APMEX (gold and silver)
- Goldco Precious Metals (gold)
- Gold Geek (gold)
- JM Bullion (gold and silver)
- Kitco (gold and silver)
- Liberty Gold and Silver (gold and silver)
- Luriya (gold and silver)
- Money Metals Exchange (gold and silver)
- SellYourGold.com (gold)
- SilverRecyclers.com (silver)
- US Gold Buyers (gold)
- SpecialtyMetals.com (gold and silver)
Local jewelry recycling
If you don’t want to send your jewelry to an online buyer or you need immediate cash, you can also find local options for recycling your jewelry:
- Pawn shops
- Local cash for gold storefronts
- Jewelry stores
- Precious metals dealers
However, in our experience, local jewelry buyers typically do not pay as much as online buyers, since they have less competition and incentive to offer you the highest price.
Detecting gold and other metals: 2024 beginners guide
Recycling silver 101
Chances are pretty good that you’ve got some unused or unwanted silver lying around your house. It might be in an obvious form, such as silver coins, silver flatware, or old or broken silver jewelry.
But it could also be in some surprising forms, too. Silver can be found in old electronics, soldering, trinkets, statues, ingot, and even in raw form.
A silver flatware set, for example, could be worth more than $1,000—money that you can use to pay down your debt, start investing, or just buy something that you will actually use.
Why recycle silver now?
Global trade organizations report that the use of recycled silver has gradually been rising, as the population overall is more concerned with the environmental impact of the products they produce, and metals recycling has become more efficient.
Further, the high price of silver and gold in recent years has inspired many to cash in their old jewelry, coins and scrap — which buyers then melt for recycling.
As of , the silver resale value in the United States was at $ per ounce, or $ per gram.
In 2020, jewelry giant Pandora announced2 that by 2025, 100% of the gold and silver used in its jewelry will be recycled. Today, about 60% of the silver the Danish jeweler uses is recycled.
How silver recyclers recycle silver
Silver recyclers might seem like complicated businesses, but they’re actually pretty straightforward. Most work like this:
The silver recycler purchases silver items or scrap from a seller, whether that is another business or an individual (like you). They will usually pay the seller slightly less than the current spot price of silver, which allows them to make a profit when they resell the metal later.
Once the recycler has enough silver, they will collect it together and melt down the miscellaneous items. What happens next depends on what sort of business the recycler is in.
Some silver recyclers sell their silver to other businesses that need silver for their products. In these cases, the recycler will pour the molten silver into a mold (such as a bar mold, or an ingot mold) and let it cool. They will then sell this silver according to its current spot price to another business. This usually yields a relatively small profit margin for the recycler.
Other silver recyclers are in the business of using their reclaimed silver for their own products. In those cases, they may pour the melted silver directly into the required mold, or they may store it in bar form until it is needed.
As a note: Silver is often mixed with other metals, such as copper, to form an alloy. A recycler may decide to separate the silver out from the other metals so that in the end they will have pure silver, or they may simply keep the alloy as-is, depending on their needs.
Can tarnished silver be recycled?
If your jewelry is sterling silver, it definitely has value to any recycler — regardless of whether it is tarnished. If your silver is plated, it has little recycling value, though you may be able to sell it through consignment, Facebook marketplace or an antique store. You can always donate it.
Other ways to repurpose or recycle silver
Aside from melting silver down to recast it, the most common alternative for recycling silver is to reuse the component pieces as-is.
For example, a silver ring can be resized, or converted into a ring blank to be used in a future design. Likewise, a silver chain can be transformed into a new necklace or bracelet. Silver trinkets or statues can be refurbished or incorporated into multi-media art projects. Silver electronic components can be moved to a new product.
Silver can also be used to create pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. In these cases, it will be mixed with other compounds.
Recycling gold 101
For as long as humans have owned gold, they’ve been melting it down and recycling it into new shapes whenever they’ve grown tired of the old shapes. This trend is on the rise.
What can gold be recycled into?
According to the World Gold Council, recycled gold accounted for 28%3 of the global gold supply in 2020 — 90% of that recycled gold comes from jewelry.
Gold coins become gold jewelry. Gold bracelets become electronic components. Gold electronic components become gold dental caps. Gold dental caps become gold coins. The cycle will continue for as long as we value gold.
And if you have gold coins, gold jewelry, or gold in any other form that you’re looking to sell, that’s good news—because it means you’ll always have a market to sell and recycle your gold.
Aside from jewelry, and as an investment, gold's durability and heat-conducting properties make it valuable for many other uses. These include:
- Industry and technology, including wiring and data storage, as well as a reflector on glass.
- Space technology, as NASA uses gold on astronauts' visors, as well as in the wiring of space equipment.
- Medicine, as gold's healing and diagnostic properties are applied to treat cancers and rheumatoid arthritis.
Detecting gold and other metals: 2024 beginners guide
How gold recyclers recycle gold
Gold recyclers purchase gold from sellers. This can include gold coins, gold jewelry, gold scrap, gold nuggets, gold ingot, gold statues, gold dental crowns, gold electrical components, and countless other forms of the metal. Usually, whatever gold recyclers pay the sellers will be a bit less than the current spot price of gold.
The recycler will typically separate the gold out by its karat weight, as this will make it easier to repurpose the gold later in the process.
Once the recycler has enough gold, they will melt it down and cast it — either into a form that they need for their own business, or into a form such as a bar or ingot that they will then resell to their customers.
In this way, a collection of 14k gold items may become a bar of 14k gold, while a different collection of 24k gold items will become a bar of 24k gold, etc.
If the recycler needs to, they may put less pure forms of gold through a process to separate the pure gold away from other metals.
Other ways to repurpose or recycle gold
Sometimes, gold can be repurposed into new items without needing to go through a recycling process.
For example, imagine that you have a gold ring which is a family heirloom. You may not like the style of the ring, but also don’t feel right about selling it. In a case like that, you might work with a jewelry designer to turn the ring into something else that you actually do like: Such as a new ring, or a different type of jewelry altogether.
Likewise, gold ingots, statues, and trinkets can be repurposed in a variety of ways to give them new life without necessarily needing to melt them down.
Is recycled gold real gold?
Yes, recycled gold is truly real gold. Gold is an element (remember the periodic table of elements from high school chemistry?) and when broken down to its essential molecular structure, can be used again as pure gold, or combined with other metal alloys to make stronger 10k, 14k, 18k and 24k gold items.
Is recycled gold bad?
Because recycled gold cuts down on carbon emission, recycled gold is good for the environment. Some critics4 argue that the smelting process for recycled metals still creates environmental waste, and any reduction in gold mining hurts the small mining communities that rely on that industry.
Can gold jewelry with diamonds and gemstones be recycled?
Yes, absolutely!
All you need to know to recycle your old jewelry is what it is made out of. If it contains a precious metal like gold, silver, or platinum, or a precious gem like diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls, you can sell it to a recycler who will break it down into its component pieces and reuse it.
Bottom line: There are options for recycling gold, silver, and jewelry
If you have gold or silver flatware, scrap, coins or jewelry, there are quality options for recycling for cash. Our top recommendations based on user reviews, customer service, security and speed to payment are CashforGoldUSA and CashforSilverUSA.
Sources
1. “Gold mining greenhouse gas emissions, abatement measures, and the impact of a carbon price,” Sam Ulrich, Allan Trench and Steffen Hagemann, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 340, 15 March 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622004899
2. “Your Next Necklace May Have Gold From an Old Phone,” The New York Times, Aug. 29, 2022 nytimes.com/2022/08/29/fashion/jewelry-electronic-mining-recycling.html
3. “Gold Demand Trends Full year and Q4 2020,” World Gold Council, Jan. 28, 2021 gold.org/goldhub/research/gold-demand-trends/gold-demand-trends-full-year-2020/supply
4.”Is recycled gold an ethical choice?” Alliance for Responsible Mining, Oct. 30, 2019 responsiblemines.org/en/2019/10/is-recycled-gold-an-ethical-choice
Global trade organizations report that the use of recycled silver has gradually been rising, as the population overall is more concerned with the environmental impact of the products they produce, and metals recycling has become more efficient.
According to the World Gold Council, recycled gold accounted for 28% of the global gold supply in 2020 — 90% of that recycled gold comes from jewelry.
Yes, recycled gold is truly real gold.
Because recycled gold cuts down on carbon emission, recycled gold is good for the environment.
Yes. All you need to know to recycle your jewelry is what it is made out of.
Yes, recycled gold is truly real gold. Gold is an element (remember the periodic table of elements from high school chemistry?) and when broken down to its essential molecular structure, can be used again as pure gold, or combined with other metal alloys to make stronger 10k, 14k, 18k and 24k gold items.
Because recycled gold cuts down on carbon emission, recycled gold is good for the environment.
