If you have unwanted gold, silver, or jewelry lying around your house, you might be thinking about selling it to a recycler who will give you cash for your items — all while being kind to the environment. But how exactly does a gold or silver recycler work? Which precious metals recyclers are the best?
Gold and diamond mining are notoriously disastrous for the environment.1 So while making money on selling your jewelry or coin, you can also feel good about helping to preserve the Earth.
We answer these and other questions below about recycled gold, silver, and jewelry so you can feel confident that you’re getting the most money possible:
Where to find silver recycling: 10 options
CashforSilverUSA: Best silver recycler
Our No. 1 recommendation when it comes to silver recyclers is CashforSilverUSA, thanks to its A+ Better Business Bureau rating, 24-hour payment, and long history of quality customer service. Plus, they take pretty much anything made of real gold or silver.
CashforSilverUSA will purchase silver in any form, whether that is silver coins, silver bars, scrap silver, silver ingots, silver jewelry, silver flatware, silver electronic scrap, or any other type of silver — as well as gold, diamond and jewelry through their sister sites CashforGoldUSA and Diamonds USA (formerly CashforDiamondsUSA).
It doesn’t matter if the silver is .999 fine silver, .925 sterling silver, coin silver, or any other purity—CashforSilverUSA will accept it and pay you a fair price for it.
To sell your silver to CashforSilverUSA:
- Visit CashforSilverUSA.com and give your name and address
- Within a few days, you will receive a prepaid FedEx shipping label that you will use to send your silver to them for appraisal. Your shipment comes with insurance automatically, so you can feel confident in sending your items.
- Within 24 hours of receiving your silver, CashforSilverUSA will appraise it and contact you with an offer to purchase. Feel free to negotiate.
- If you accept their offer, you’ll receive payment via PayPal or check. Depending on the option you choose, it’s possible to receive payment immediately after accepting their offer.
- If you don’t accept their offer, they’ll return your silver, gold or gemstone at no cost to you.
CashforSilverUSA offers a 10% bonus if you send your silver in for appraisal within 7 days of receiving your prepaid mailer. This means that CashforSilverUSA is regularly one of the top payers when it comes to silver recyclers. Expect to pay around a 20% commission when selling any precious metal.
Sell your silver to CashforSilverUSA now>>
Silver recycler: Pawn shops
Pawnbrokers near you often buy silver flatware and other sterling items worth at least $100 — and then recycle them for scrap. Pawn shops can be a good option if you need cash right away, or want to use the pawn loan service.
Other online silver recyclers
We like CashforSilverUSA because of its strong online reputation across multiple user review sites, its fast, insured shipping, quick payment and free, insured returns — features not shared by all silver recyclers.
Other silver buyers you can consider include:
- APMEX
- JM Bullion
- Kitco
- Liberty Gold and Silver
- Luriya.com
- MoneyMetals.com
- SilverRecyclers.com
- SpecialtyMetals.com
Where to find gold recycling: 10 options
CashforGoldUSA: Best gold recycler
CashforGoldUSA is our top choice when it comes to gold recyclers, for a simple reason: They’re the best.
CashforGoldUSA pays top dollar for your recycled gold, and they pay fast—within 24 hours of you accepting their offer, and have paid out tens of millions of dollars since its founding in 2005. Plus, the BBB rates them A+.
Whether you have gold ingot, gold jewelry, gold coins, a raw gold nugget, gold dental crowns, or gold in any other form, CashforGoldUSA will accept it. They purchase regular gold, white gold, and rose gold in any karat (this is often stamped on jewelry): 10k, 14k, 18k, 22k, 24k.
To sell your gold to CashforGoldUSA:
Go to CashforGoldUSA.com and:
- Fill out a form with your address.
- You’ll receive a prepaid and insured FedEx shipping label within a few days. Using that label, send in your gold for an appraisal.
- CashforGoldUSA will appraise your gold within 24 hours of receiving your package and will make you an offer via text, phone or email — your choice. Feel free to negotiate.
- If you choose to accept their offer, they’ll pay you via PayPal or check depending on your preferences.
If you choose not to accept their offer, CashforGoldUSA will return your gold at absolutely no charge to you, fully insured.
If you send your gold to CashforGoldUSA within a week of receiving your prepaid mailer, they’ll pay you an extra 10% for your gold. Because of this, CashforGoldUSA has been found to pay some of the top rates for gold.
Sell your gold using CashforGoldUSA now>>
Other gold recyclers
We like CashforGoldUSA—a sister sister site of CashforSilverUSA— because of its strong online reputation across multiple user review sites, fast, insured shipping, quick payment and free, insured returns. Plus, they buy all gold, silver, diamond and other fine jewelry — no minimum. These features not shared by all gold recyclers.
Other gold recyclers that will happily buy your gold from you include:
- Abe Mor
- American Bullion
- APMEX
- Goldco Precious Metals
- Gold Geek
- JM Bullion
- Kitco
- Liberty Gold and Silver
- Luriya
- Money Metals Exchange
- SellYourGold.com
- US Gold Buyers
- SpecialtyMetals.com
Gold recycler: Pawn shops
Pawn shops also buy gold and other fine jewelry, quickly and in cash. Ask friends and family for a local recommendation, and check with local Yelp! or BBB listings for a quality pawn broker in your community.
Metal recycling “near me”
If you don’t want to use an online silver or gold recycler, there may be quality gold recyclers and silver recyclers in your community. Check their BBB, Yelp and Google reviews before you sell your metals — and ask around for recommendations.:
Search “metal recyclers near me” or a similar phrase, or use our zip code tool to find jewelry recyclers near you.
Detecting gold and other metals: 2023 beginners guide
Here is what you need to know about recycling your gold or silver for the highest price, quickly:
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 raw form.
If you’ve got silver that you don’t want, need, or use, recycling your silver can be an excellent way of making some money that you can use to reach your other goals. 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.
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% 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 who 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.
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, like gold chains, necklaces or rings. 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: 2023 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.
Humans have been successfully recycling gold for as long as the metal has been used —since the Egyptians used gold more than 13,000 years ago.
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.
Recycling jewelry 101
Can 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.
Read our Diamonds USA review here>>
Sell your diamonds using Diamonds USA now>>
What else can I do with cheap, unwanted jewelry?
If your unwanted jewelry doesn’t contain any precious metals or gems, but you still want to get rid of it, that doesn’t mean it needs to be destined for the trashcan.
Consider selling your old jewelry to a consignment shop, donating to a charity thrift store like Goodwill or giving to a preschool or other place for kids to play with it. You may not get a ton of money, but anything is better than nothing, and it’s certainly better than adding to the landfill.
How do you dispose of cheap jewelry?
Are you talking about costume jewelry? If your costume jewelry is a notable brand, or otherwise remarkable in some way, you may consider selling on consignment or at a pawnshop. Ebay, Poshmark or Thredup are worth a look to see what your item can fetch for sale.
If your jewelry is not worth much, then give it to a local charity thrift store as a tax writeoff.
However, all gold and silver jewelry can be sold for at least a small profit. CashforGoldUSA and CashforSilverUSA accept all weights and qualities of precious metals.
Should I throw out old jewelry?
If your costume jewelry is really crappy, at least recycle the plastic! Otherwise, there is a very good chance you can recycle the gold or silver for profit, sell your higher quality costume jewelry online, or donate your jewelry for a tax break — and know someone else is enjoying it.
Should I throw out tarnished jewelry?
If your jewelry is sterling silver, it defniately has value to any recycler—regardless of whether it is tarnished. However, if your silver is plated, it has little recycling value, but you may be able to sell it through consignment, Facebook marketplace or an antique store. You can always donate it to Goodwill.
Gold jewelry has value, including in some cases when it is plated. Ask a local jeweler what you have and its value.
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. “The Environmental Disaster That is the Gold Industry,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 14, 2014 smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/environmental-disaster-gold-industry-180949762/
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
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.
Yes, absolutely! All you need to know to recycle your old jewelry is what it is made out of.
Consider selling it to a consignment shop, or through an online platform like Poshmark, Mercari, or ThredUp. You may not get a ton of money, but anything is better than nothing, and it’s certainly better than adding to the landfill.
Are you talking about costume jewelry? If your costume jewelry is a notable brand, or otherwise remarkable in some way, you may consider selling on consignment or at a pawnshop. All gold and silver jewelry can be sold for at least a small profit.
If your costume jewelry is really crappy, at least recycle the plastic! Otherwise, there is a very good chance you can recycle the gold or silver for profit.
