Getting the best price for your gold is something almost everyone with unused gold jewellery sitting in a drawer wonders about. Just a few years ago, where you lived genuinely mattered: the value of your gold depended on which shop happened to be nearest, and what price its buyer happened to pay. Gold buyers touring around Finland also price their offers differently from town to town, depending on how much local competition there is for gold.
Today the situation is different. A price tied to the public market price is available no matter where you live. In this article we go through what really determines the best gold price, why your local jeweller often doesn't pay the best price for gold, and how to turn your gold into cash safely from anywhere in Finland.
Why doesn't your local jeweller often pay the best price?
When you search Google for someone who "buys gold", the results are almost always local jewellers, pawnbrokers or touring gold buyers. This is exactly why the price of gold has traditionally varied from town to town: the price has depended on local competition. Even different shops in the same city could pay very different amounts for the same piece of jewellery. Local shops typically don't have a public per-gram price that applies to everyone — instead the price is agreed at the counter, based on the buyer's own judgement.
You can get very different offers for the same 5-gram gold chain, because the price is often not tied to any public benchmark. We ran a concrete test of this: we sent the same batch of gold to several different buyers and compared the offers. The results are covered in the article Gold Lab vs. jeweller vs. pawnbroker — who pays the most?
In our comparison, Gold Lab paid 41% more for the same batch of gold than the cheapest local buyer.
What determines the best gold price?
There's no such thing as good gold or bad gold. There's just gold. The value of gold is always calculated from three factors: the item's weight, its purity (e.g. 585 = 14K = 58.5% gold), and gold's world market price, which is public data. Multiplying these three together gives the true value of the gold the item contains.
We go through the formula and worked examples in detail in the article How much do you get per gram of gold? If you want to see the current per-gram price right now, it updates in real time on the Pricing page.
The best price for your gold
The checklist below shows how to get the best price for your gold.
-
Is the price tied to the public market price?
Gold's current world market price is public information you can check yourself. If a buyer doesn't tell you what their price is based on, it's probably not tied to the market price. Read more in the article How is the gold price formed — LBMA and the spot price.
-
Does the buyer break down their own fee in euros?
The best buyer tells you in advance what the gold is worth, and itemises the fee they deduct from it.
-
Can you cancel the deal if you don't accept the offer?
A trustworthy buyer returns your items free of charge if you don't accept the offer made after analysis.
We buy gold at the same price in every municipality in Finland
Gold Lab has unified gold buying prices across Finland. We buy gold at exactly the same price regardless of where you live, which makes selling gold equal and fair for every Finn.
It pays to sell your whole jewellery box at once, in a single shipment. The fixed service fee is only charged once per batch, so it's spread over more gold and the final per-gram price improves.
Turning gold into cash, easily and at the best price
Selling gold at the best price as an insured postal shipment is simple. You order a shipping pack to your mailbox, and post your gold items — insured — to our laboratory from your nearest Posti service point.
-
Order a free, insured shipping pack
The order takes a few minutes online. The pack arrives at your home by post and is already insured for the entire journey.
-
Pack and post your gold
It's worth putting all your gold items — including broken ones — into the same shipment.
-
Your gold is analysed in the laboratory
Every item is weighed to an accuracy of 0.01 grams, and its purity is measured with XRF or acid analysis. The process is documented.
-
You receive a transparent offer
The offer itemises the weight and purity of every gold item. You see the current market price the final sum is calculated from.
-
Accept, and the money is in your account quickly
You simply reply to the message you receive. If you don't accept the offer, your items are returned free of charge. The whole process, from parcel to bank account, is described on the How it works page.
You can estimate the value of your own gold in advance with the pricing calculator, or start selling straight away on the Sell your gold page.