Where to Sell (or Buy) Gold, Silver & Platinum in Arizona

ARS 44-1602 is built around a shop inside the state: dealers "may only purchase at their permanent place of business, as listed on their sales tax license," must report each week to the local police department or county sheriff, and must display the statute on their premises. We have no Arizona premises; your items travel to our refinery in Oregon and the purchase happens there.

After you accept, you complete a simple online verification before we pay. Send only items that are yours to sell: Arizona makes giving false information about your identity or your ownership of property to a precious metals dealer a class 1 misdemeanor (ARS 44-1630 and 44-1631).

You get an itemized offer listing each piece with its weight and purity. Turn it down and we mail everything back with free return postage.* Accept and payment goes out the same day.**

Arizona regulates anyone in the business of buying secondhand gold, silver or platinum, or jewelry, flatware and holloware containing them, as a "dealer in precious items" under ARS 44-1601 and 44-1602. At the counter the dealer must see a driver's license, state ID, military ID or other valid photo ID, record your name, address, date of birth, signature and a physical description, and keep that record for six months. Every purchase goes on a weekly list to the local police department or county sheriff, and the item stays in the dealer's custody, unaltered, for ten calendar days after that report.

Two rules surprise most sellers. Payment "shall be by check only, made payable to a named payee who is the actual intended seller," so an Arizona gold buyer cannot hand you cash for jewelry. And dealers may not buy from anyone under 18 unless a parent or guardian comes along. Violations are a class 1 misdemeanor for the dealer.

Coins fall outside the definition of "precious item," which is why coin shops can usually close a coin sale on the spot. Selling outright to a pawn shop is stricter still: Arizona pawnbrokers hold outright purchases for 20 days, and their transaction form takes your fingerprint.

Arizona's transaction privilege tax (TPT) is its version of a sales tax, and ARS 42-5061(A)(21) carves out "precious metal bullion" and "monetized bullion" from it entirely. Precious metal bullion is defined as gold, silver, platinum, rhodium or palladium that has been smelted or refined so its value depends on its metal content rather than its form, and monetized bullion covers coins and other forms of money made from those metals that are used as a medium of exchange. In practice that means American Eagles, Maple Leafs, generic rounds and cast or minted bars all sell tax-free at the register.

The one exception written into the statute is narrow: coins or other forms of money purchased specifically for manufacture into jewelry or works of art remain subject to TPT. That targets a buyer melting coinage down for fabrication, not the everyday sale of bullion or collector coins. Jewelry itself gets no such break; it is taxed at the ordinary retail rate, which runs 5.6% at the state level and up to roughly 10.9% once county and city add-ons are layered on, depending on where the sale happens.

None of this matters when you are the one SELLING. Sales tax is a cost the buyer pays on a retail purchase, not something withheld from what a dealer pays you for your gold, silver or platinum. Whether you sell to a Phoenix coin shop or through our mail-in program, you receive the agreed price with no TPT deducted; the tax question only comes up again if you turn around and buy something.

House Bill 2014 (2017) added a subtraction to Arizona gross income, now codified at ARS 43-1022, paragraph 25: for tax years beginning after December 31, 2017, you may subtract any net capital gain derived from "the exchange of one kind of legal tender for another kind of legal tender." The same section defines legal tender as a medium of exchange authorized by the U.S. Constitution or Congress, including "specie," which it defines as coins having precious metal content. Because U.S. dollars are also legal tender, this in practice covers gains on U.S.-issued gold and silver coins, such as American Eagles, sold for cash. It does not extend to foreign coins that are not U.S. legal tender, or to bullion bars, rounds or private-mint products, none of which meet the statute's definition of specie.

Outside that narrow state subtraction, your cost basis is what you originally paid, or for inherited pieces, the value on the date of death, which is why inherited jewelry and coins often carry little or no taxable gain. Federally, the IRS treats physical precious metals (bullion, coins and jewelry alike) as collectibles, taxed at your ordinary rate up to a 28% cap when held more than a year, and as ordinary income when held a year or less. A dealer files IRS Form 1099-B only when you sell a form of gold, silver, platinum or palladium that settles a CFTC-approved futures contract, in at least the contract quantity, with sales inside 24 hours added together. Single coins, small lots, jewelry, scrap and dental gold fall outside that test. A missing 1099-B does not remove your obligation to report a gain.

House Bill 2014 (2017) wrote a definition of "legal tender" and "specie" into ARS 43-1021, 43-1022, 43-1121 and 43-1122, the state's individual and corporate income tax addition and subtraction statutes. That definition exists to determine which gains qualify for the capital-gain subtraction described above; it does not create a general commercial legal-tender law, and Arizona has no statute requiring any person or business to accept gold or silver coin in payment.

A 2025 bill, SB 1096, would have gone much further, creating a state-run bullion depository and a gold- and silver-backed transactional currency recognized as legal tender for state purposes. It passed the Senate 17 to 12 but stalled in the House and was never signed into law. A follow-up attempt in 2026, HB 2123, would have created a similar Arizona Bullion Depository; it failed its final House floor vote twice, on March 4 and again on reconsideration on March 10, 2026, before the legislature adjourned for the year. So no state-issued specie or depository exists in Arizona today. Every buyer, including us, still prices your metal off the live spot market rather than any face value.