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

R.S. 37:1861 defines a secondhand dealer as a person "in this state" in the business of buying jewelry, precious metals and other used property. The license application under R.S. 37:1862 names "the street number and house number of the building where the business is to be carried on," the daily report goes to the police chief or sheriff where the dealer "is doing business" (R.S. 37:1866), and the 30-day hold keeps items "on the premises" or elsewhere in the same parish (R.S. 37:1867). We have no Louisiana 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.

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.**

Louisiana's secondhand dealer law (R.S. 37:1861 and following) covers anyone in the state who buys used jewelry, silverware, diamonds or precious metals as a business, and buying more than once a month counts. Each dealer needs a local occupational license and posts a bond with the city or parish, and a pawnshop license doubles as a secondhand dealer license, though pawnshops keep their records and report under the pawnbroker law (R.S. 37:1796 to 1798) instead of the secondhand dealer record and reporting rules (R.S. 37:1862.1). Before buying, the dealer records your name, address and the number of your driver's license (Louisiana or another state), passport, military ID or other government ID; with no ID the sale cannot go through. You also sign a statement that the items are yours or paid for. Records stay at the shop for three years, and a copy of each day's entries goes to the police chief or sheriff by noon the next day, sent electronically.

The dealer then keeps what it bought for 30 calendar days, on the premises or elsewhere in the same parish, before selling, melting or altering it, unless it can prove you had valid title. No dealer may buy gold, silver, jewelry or precious stones from anyone under 18, and shops may only be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (10 p.m. on Saturdays and in December).

Dealers in coins and currency are exempt from the whole law, and the photo and under-18 rules do not apply to manufactured bullion bars or coins at any dealer. The state's cash-payment limits cover copper and other scrap metals but expressly leave out precious metal objects, so state law does not stop a jewelry buyer paying cash. Temporary buyers who set up in a rented room or storefront are transient merchants under R.S. 37:1910, with their own daily reports and a 15-day hold.

Louisiana does this through its definition of tangible personal property, which leaves out platinum, gold or silver bullion "valued solely upon its precious metal content, whether in coin or ingot form," numismatic coins with a sales price of no more than one thousand dollars, and numismatic coins sold at a national, statewide or multi-parish trade show. Jewelry is taxed at the state rate of 5%, and parish and city taxes push the combined rate as high as 12% in places, the steepest average in the country.

Sales tax is a buyer's cost. You pay none when you sell your gold, silver or platinum, whether to a local shop or to us by mail.

Under R.S. 47:32 as rewritten in 2024, Louisiana taxes individual net income at a flat 3%, and a gain on gold, silver or platinum you sell is part of that income. We found no Louisiana subtraction or credit aimed at precious metals or legal-tender coins.

Federally, the IRS taxes physical precious metals as collectibles: gains on metal held more than a year are taxed at your ordinary rate up to a 28% cap, and metal held a year or less is taxed as ordinary income. Inherited pieces generally use the value on the date of death as their cost basis. We are not tax advisers, so check with yours before you file.

R.S. 6:341, enacted in 2024 and amended in 2025, says any gold or silver coin, specie or bullion "recognized by the United States government as legal tender," and any gold-backed debit instrument that can convert gold in a depository to fiat currency, is legal tender in Louisiana. No one has to offer or accept it unless a contract says so. It does not change what a buyer pays you: coins are still priced off the live metal market, not their face value.