Sell Gold Coins in NYC

Every gold coin has a floor: the value of the gold inside it. Some coins are worth exactly that floor and nothing more. Others carry a numismatic premium, meaning collectors will pay above melt for the date, the mintmark, the rarity or the condition.

Getting that call right is the whole job on this page. Sell a scarce date to somebody who only pays melt and you have left real money behind. We look at the specific coin, not the category.

If your coin is a modern bullion issue — an American Eagle, a Krugerrand, a Maple Leaf — it is priced as bullion rather than as a collectible, and that is a different conversation on our gold bullion page.

The United States struck circulating gold until 1933, and those coins are the backbone of the American collector market.

Double Eagles ($20) come in two designs: Liberty Head through 1907, then Saint-Gaudens from 1907 to 1933. Common dates trade near melt plus a modest premium; scarce dates and mintmarks go considerably higher.

Eagles ($10), Half Eagles ($5) and Quarter Eagles ($2.50) include the Indian Head series, whose incuse design sits below the surface of the field rather than raised above it. That unusual construction means wear patterns read differently, which matters for grading.

Date and mintmark are worth checking before you assume anything. Two coins that look identical across a counter can be separated by a large multiple.

Plenty of gold coinage arrives here from families who brought it over generations ago, and it is often mistaken for costume jewellery or forgotten in a drawer.

British Sovereigns are among the most widely traded gold coins in the world and are easy to value accurately. Mexican 50 Pesos are large and heavy at 1.2 troy ounces of gold. French and Swiss 20 Francs, Austrian and Hungarian ducats and restrikes all trade actively.

Restrikes are worth flagging: several countries reissued older-dated coins for decades afterwards. A restrike is genuine gold but carries little collector premium, and confusing one for an original is a common and expensive mistake.

If there is one thing worth taking away from this page before you visit, it is this: do not polish, scrub or dip a collectible coin.

Collectors pay for original surfaces. A coin's natural toning and the fine detail in its fields are part of what is being graded. Polishing puts microscopic scratches across those surfaces and it is immediately visible under magnification. A cleaned coin can lose a substantial share of its collector premium permanently, and the damage cannot be undone.

Dirt, fingerprints and dull toning are all fine. Leave them. Bring the coin exactly as you found it, even if it looks grubby to you.

A lot of gold coins reach us mounted — set into a bezel, hung on a chain, sometimes soldered directly onto a mount.

A removable screw-top bezel is the good case. The coin comes out undamaged and is valued on its own merits, and the bezel is weighed as scrap gold separately.

Solder is the bad case. Once solder has touched the rim, the coin's collector premium is largely gone, because the surface has been altered permanently. It still has full melt value, so it is far from worthless, but it will usually be valued as gold rather than as a collectible.

Do not try to prise a coin out of its mount yourself. A slip scratches the coin and costs more than any bezel is worth. Bring it mounted and we will assess it as it is.