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

Utah's Pawnshop, Secondhand Merchandise, and Catalytic Converter Transaction Information Act (Utah Code Title 13, Chapter 32a) defines a secondhand merchandise dealer as "a person whose business" engages in secondhand merchandise transactions, meaning "the purchase or exchange of used or secondhand property," and that definition does not mention a place of business in Utah. A pawnshop is "the physical location or premises" where a pawnbroker works, and Section 13-32a-112.5 extends the chapter to businesses operating "from a location that is not a permanent retail location," but nothing in the chapter says whether it reaches a buyer outside Utah that buys from Utah residents by mail. We have no Utah 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.**

Utah's Pawnshop, Secondhand Merchandise, and Catalytic Converter Transaction Information Act (Utah Code Title 13, Chapter 32a) covers pawnbrokers and secondhand dealers, coin dealers included. For each purchase a pawn or secondhand shop fills out a ticket with your name and date of birth as shown on your government photo ID, your address and phone number, the ID number, your signature and a print of your right index finger, plus a description of each piece with its metal content and, when you are paid by weight, its weight. Every item of jewelry, and any engraving on it, is photographed in color. The ticket goes to a statewide database within 24 hours and is kept at least three years. Shops cannot buy from anyone under 18 or anyone who appears to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Coin dealers keep the full ticket, fingerprint included, the first time you sell to them; after that a shorter ticket with your initials and the last four digits of your ID is enough. Purchased property, scrap jewelry included, has to be held 15 calendar days after it is reported before the shop can resell it, but the hold does not apply to coins and other numismatic items or to commercial-grade bullion. Police can still put a 90-day hold on any item and extend it another 90 days; anything longer needs a court order.

Utah Code 59-12-104 exempts coins and currency that are legal tender of a state, the United States or a foreign nation. Gold, silver or platinum ingots, bars, medallions and decorative coins that are not legal tender are exempt when they contain at least 50% of those metals, and so are gold, silver or platinum notes, leaf or foil used as currency at the same 50% content. Still taxed: jewelry, palladium bars and rounds (palladium is not named in the exemption) and bullion products under 50% gold, silver or platinum.

When you sell: sales tax is a buyer's cost, not yours. You pay no Utah tax when you sell your gold, silver or platinum, whether to a local shop or to us by mail.

Utah taxes capital gains at its flat individual income tax rate. Utah Code 59-10-1028 gives a nonrefundable credit equal to that same rate applied to your net capital gain from exchanges of one form of legal tender for another, which in effect offsets the state tax on that gain. Under Utah's Specie Legal Tender Act, gold and silver coins issued by the United States are legal tender, so selling American Gold or Silver Eagles, for example, can qualify. The credit cannot be carried forward or back.

Bars, rounds, jewelry and dental gold are not legal tender, so gains on them are taxed normally. The IRS taxes gains on physical precious metals as collectibles: up to 28% when held more than a year, and as ordinary income when held a year or less. Inherited metal generally uses its value on the date of death as its cost basis. We are not tax advisers, so check with yours before you file.

Utah's Specie Legal Tender Act (Utah Code 59-1-1501 and following, first passed in 2011 as the Legal Tender Act and renamed in 2012) makes specie legal tender in the state, and gold and silver coins issued by the United States count as specie. Other gold or silver coins and bullion qualify only if a court or Congress authorizes it. No one can be forced to pay or accept specie unless a contract says so.

In practice it changes nothing about the price you get: buyers value your coins off the live metal market, not their face value. Where it matters is tax, because legal-tender status is what the income tax credit above turns on.