Everything people are actually anxious about

We publish it. The rate page shows the market reference for 999 fine gold, the percentage of it we pay, and the resulting rupees per gram — updated each trading morning with a timestamp. Multiply that by the pure gold in your piece and you have your figure before you leave the house.

It usually is not — you are comparing two different numbers. The rate on a news or bullion site is the market reference price for pure gold. What any buyer pays you is a percentage of that, because the buyer has to refine, hedge and carry the metal. The difference is that we print the percentage on the page. Almost nobody else in this city does, which is why their headline number looks bigger and their payout does not.

Up to ₹10,000. Not because we are being awkward — Section 40A(3) of the Income-tax Act disallows any cash payment above ₹10,000 to one person in one day as a business expense, so a buyer who hands over more than that in notes is taxed on the whole amount as though it were profit. It is not illegal; it is simply something no buyer can afford to do twice.

Then it goes by RTGS, and you should want it to. Section 269ST bars any person from receiving ₹2,00,000 or more in cash, and Section 271DA allows a penalty equal to the whole amount received. In a gold sale, the person receiving the cash is you. The penalty is not automatic — there is a reasonable-cause defence — but it is not a risk worth running for the convenience of carrying notes.

Minutes. NEFT and RTGS both run 24×7×365, so there is no longer any such thing as "outside banking hours", and RBI has removed the charges on online NEFT from savings accounts. IMPS settles in under a minute for amounts up to ₹5 lakh. You should see the credit before you leave the counter.

No. The cleaning, weighing, XRF test and written quote are free, and free whether or not you sell. There is no fee for walking out.

Not in advance, and nobody honestly can — gold moves while you travel. What we can do is hold the rate stamped on your quote slip for the rest of that day, so you are free to go away, think, or get a second opinion without the number moving underneath you. Beyond that day it is re-quoted at the published rate for the new day.

No, and that is deliberate. The published percentage depends on what you bring — bullion, hallmarked plain jewellery, or unmarked and stone-set — never on how much of it. Quantity tiers sound generous and work by paying small sellers less. For genuinely large lots we will talk about melt-and-assay, which usually recovers more for you than a surface reading does.

X-ray fluorescence, on a benchtop analyser, with the screen turned towards you. XRF reads the metal composition without cutting, scratching or dissolving anything, and on clean metal typically lands within 0.1–0.5% of a fire assay. It is the same screening method BIS hallmarking centres use.

No. XRF is entirely non-destructive — your piece comes back exactly as it went in. That is the whole reason we use it instead of an acid streak.

Nothing, as a cross-check. Everything, as the only test. A touchstone streak is accurate to two or three karats at best, depends entirely on the operator’s eye, and reads only the surface. If a buyer is deciding your payout on a rubbed streak and a colour chart, you are being valued by opinion.

It can be incomplete, and we would rather say so. XRF reads the surface and a few microns beneath it, so a heavily plated piece or one with a lot of low-karat solder at the joints can read differently from its true average. Where that is a risk we tell you and offer to melt and re-test rather than quietly quote you the lower number.

Yes. A hallmark is a certificate of what the maker claimed; the XRF test measures what is actually there. Plenty of older, inherited and imported pieces carry no BIS mark at all and sell perfectly normally.

916 parts of gold per thousand — 91.6% pure, which is 22 karat, and the standard for most Indian jewellery. The other BIS marks you will find stamped on a piece are 750 for 18K and 585 for 14K. Note that 24K jewellery is hallmarked 995, not 999: 999 is the fineness for bullion, and jewellery cannot practically be worked at it.

Usually solder. The joints in a chain or the posts on an earring are set with a lower-karat alloy, so an average across the whole piece comes in a little under the stamp. It is normal and it is not anyone cheating you — but it is exactly why you should watch the reading rather than take it on trust.

Only after you have seen the quote, and only if you are certain. Melting mixes the metal evenly and often reveals a slightly better average purity than a surface reading. It is also irreversible — once a piece is melted it cannot be handed back. We will never melt anything before you have agreed to the price.

The Legal Metrology Act requires jewellery trade balances to be at least Class II accuracy and to read to 0.01 g, verified and stamped by the state department. Ours carries a current stamp and the certificate is on the wall. Using an unverified scale carries a fine of ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 and imprisonment on repeat. Ask to see the sticker — anywhere, not just here.

Because polish residue, oil and years of dust are real weight, and they are not gold. Cleaning first means the gross weight on record is the true one. A counter that weighs first and cleans afterwards has given itself a number it can revise downwards later.

One current government photo ID — Aadhaar, PAN, passport, voter ID or driving licence. That is enough for an ordinary sale.

Where a single transaction exceeds ₹2,00,000, yes — Rule 114B of the Income-tax Rules requires it for bullion and jewellery above that value, regardless of how you are paid. If you genuinely hold no PAN, Form 60 is the prescribed declaration and we will give you one to sign. Below that value, any government photo ID is fine.

No. It is your gold and you do not have to prove where it came from. A bill helps you work out capital gains later, so it is worth digging out if you can, but it is not a condition of sale.

Yes, if it has passed to you. Bring your own ID. For tax purposes inherited gold takes the original owner’s cost and their holding period, which usually means it counts as long-term — worth knowing before you file.

Not on their own. A minor cannot enter into this contract independently. A parent or legal guardian must complete the sale, with their own ID and their own bank account for the payout.

Only with a proper written authorisation and both IDs, and the payment still goes to the owner’s account. We would rather lose the sale than hand someone else’s gold money to the wrong person.

Yes. Bring your passport and Indian PAN. The payout goes to an Indian bank account in your name — an NRO account is the usual route, and repatriation from there follows the normal RBI limits. Talk to your accountant about the tax side before you sell.

No. CBIC has stated this plainly: when an individual sells their own old jewellery it is not made in the course of business, so it is not a supply, and reverse charge does not apply to the buyer either. Any buyer deducting "GST" from a consumer payout has invented it. That is a reason to leave.

It is gone. GST on a gold purchase — 3% on the metal and 5% on making charges — is a sunk cost that is never recovered on resale. No honest buyer deducts it again at the other end, and no buyer can refund it.

Possibly, on the gain rather than the sale value. Hold gold for more than 24 months and the gain is long-term, taxed at a flat 12.5% with no indexation. Sell within 24 months and it is short-term, taxed at your slab rate. Your cost includes the making charges you originally paid.

That was the rule, and it has not been for two years. Budget 2024 cut the holding period from 36 to 24 months, and from 23 July 2024 long-term gains on gold are taxed at a flat 12.5% with indexation removed. Tax pages age badly — check the date on anything you read about this, including this page.

Almost certainly not. TCS on cash sales of bullion and jewellery was removed with effect from 1 April 2017. TDS enters the picture only where a buyer whose own turnover exceeded ₹10 crore in the preceding year pays one seller more than ₹50 lakh in a financial year, and then at 0.1% on the excess alone. For an ordinary household sale, nothing is deducted from what you are paid.

Section 54F is the usual route: invest the entire net sale consideration from a long-term gold sale into buying or building one residential house within the prescribed windows, and the gain can be fully exempt. It is a real provision with real conditions — take it to a chartered accountant, not to a gold buyer.

The sale itself will not. What draws attention is a large cash deposit that does not match your return — banks report savings-account cash deposits of ₹10 lakh or more in a financial year, and it appears in your AIS. Taking the money by bank transfer and reporting the gain is the quiet path.

There is a widely quoted CBDT instruction from 1994 under which, during a search, jewellery is not seized up to 500 g for a married woman, 250 g for an unmarried woman and 100 g per male family member. Read it carefully though: it governs what may be seized, not what is exempt from tax. It is not a licence, and anyone telling you it is has not read it.

Jewellery of any karat and any condition, coins, bars and biscuits, dental gold, broken and single earrings, and pieces that have been sitting in a locker for forty years. Damaged is fine — we are buying metal, not resale-ready ornaments.

Yes — articles, coins, utensils and bullion, tested and weighed the same way. The published silver rate is on the rate page.

They are removed and weighed out separately, because they are not gold and you should not be paid gold rates for them. You can take the stones home, or we can value them as a separate line. What we will not do is quietly keep them inside the gold weight.

Less than it weighs, often much less. The gold foil in kundan and jadau work is usually high-karat, but the lac packed behind it is not metal at all — it is dead weight. We open the piece and show you what comes out, rather than applying a percentage you cannot check.

No. Making charges were paid to your jeweller and are not recoverable, but they are not ours to charge you for a second time either. "Wastage" is a manufacturing cost you already bore at the buying end; deducting it again at the selling end is charging you twice for the same thing.

Exactly three: the purity discount (already inside the measured number), the physical weight of anything that is not gold, and — only where a lot has to be melted — a stated, capped refining loss. Genuine melt loss rarely exceeds 1–2%. Anyone quoting 5% is quoting their margin and calling it loss.

Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons people come in. Be clear about what it is, though: this is a sale, not a rescue. We settle the outstanding loan directly with the lender, the gold is released to us, and you receive whatever it is worth above what was owed. You never have to find the redemption money yourself — but you do not get the jewellery back. If keeping it matters more than the money, repaying the loan yourself is the better path and we will say so.

Nationalised and private banks, and the gold loan NBFCs — Muthoot, Manappuram, IIFL, Fedbank and the rest. The mechanics differ slightly by lender but the shape is the same.

Usually not. Under the RBI directions a lender must give you notice before auctioning pledged gold, and that notice period is your window to act. Two things are worth knowing. An auction does not forfeit your surplus — the lender must return whatever is realised above the outstanding loan. But it does end any chance of keeping the ornament itself, and auction realisations are usually poorer than a straight sale. Bring the notice in the day it arrives and we will tell you plainly whether acting is worth it.

Often the same day, sometimes 24 to 48 hours, depending on how quickly the lender processes the closure and hands the packet back. We will tell you which it is likely to be before you commit to anything.

Then we will tell you, and you should not proceed. It happens when interest has run for a long time on a high loan-to-value advance. We would rather send you away with the facts than take a transaction that leaves you worse off.

No. Walk in during counter hours. There is no regulatory reason for an appointment and we are not going to invent one to manage your expectations.

About fifteen minutes for a straightforward sale, start to money in your account. Pledged-gold releases take longer because a third party is involved.

You take your gold and go. Nothing is melted, cut or altered before you have seen the written quote and said yes, so the piece goes back to you exactly as it arrived. There is no fee and no argument.

You are meant to. The cleaning, the weighing and the XRF test all happen at the counter with the displays facing you. If you cannot see a number from where you are standing, say so and we will move it.

For larger lots and for customers who cannot travel, yes — call us and we will arrange it. The process is identical; the equipment comes to you.

Then do not. Call before you travel and we will bring the scale and the XRF to you instead — there is no charge for the visit and nothing about the process changes. If you do come in, bring whoever you like; nobody is asked to wait outside. And because the rate on your quote slip holds for the rest of that day, you can go away and think about it without the number moving.

No, and you should not want to. Cash is capped at ₹10,000 anyway; everything above that reaches your own bank account by IMPS, NEFT or RTGS, usually before you have left the counter. Nobody watches you walk out with a bag.

A purchase voucher listing gross weight, non-gold weight deducted, measured purity, the rate applied and the amount paid. Keep it. It is your cost-of-sale record if you ever need to show a capital gain.