What happens to old gold after the sale?
Anyone who sells an old ring, a broken chain or a box of inherited jewellery often wonders what happens to it afterwards. In short: your piece becomes a raw material. It is first melted to measure what is really in it, and then refined into pure gold that is used again. We follow that path here step by step, without jargon, and explain what it means for the price you receive.
A smelter turns a pile of old gold into one even lump and measures what is in it. A refinery removes the other metals, until (almost) pure gold remains. Melting therefore makes your gold measurable, refining makes it pure. Melting happens in many places, refining in few: in Belgium there is one refinery, EMEKO in Wijnegem.
The journey of your old gold, step by step
Old jewellery usually travels the same road. The diagram below shows that chain, from your drawer to new gold.
- Your drawer Old rings, chains, odd earrings.
- The buyer Weighs, tests and buys. In Belgium every professional buyer must be registered in the hallmark register.
- Melting into a block Trading houses, buyers and many jewellers melt the gold themselves, on a large or a small scale, cast it into a rough bar or blocks and take a sample from it.
- The refinery Removes the other metals.
- Fine gold As a bar or as granules.
- A new life Jewellery, coins, bars or raw material for industry.
Whoever sells to a professional buyer sells to someone who must be registered in the hallmark register of the Royal Mint. You can read what that register involves in the obligations in the gold sector. Such a buyer often first melts the jewellery into blocks of gold, because the weight and the content are recorded more accurately that way. Those blocks then go to a refinery, in Belgium or just across the border. Jewellery from private individuals therefore usually reaches a refinery through such intermediaries.
Not everything follows that road. Coins that are still intact are not melted but resold as coins. Damaged coins are settled as scrap gold and are melted. You can read about the difference in investment gold and scrap gold, and you can see which coins you have in our overview of gold coins.
Melting: from a pile of jewellery to one honest measurement
During melting the material is liquefied, usually in an induction furnace, and stirred into one even mass. That mass is cast into a bar or granules, and a sample is taken from it.
Why that detour? An 18 carat ring, a 14 carat chain and 9 carat earrings together form a mixture that cannot be judged with a single measurement. Only once everything has been melted and mixed does one small sample say something about the whole. That sample is often measured with a spectrometer, a device that measures the composition of the metal. The fire assay, laid down in the international standard ISO 11426, remains the reference method.
1,064 °C
At that temperature pure gold melts.
962 °C
Silver melts lower than gold.
1 sample
After melting and mixing, a representative sample says something about the content of the whole lot.
Alloys such as those in your jewellery usually melt lower than the pure metal.
Only the gold belongs in the crucible. Stones, pearls and parts that are not gold do not count: they are taken out of the piece or deducted from the weight. At De Munter we remove gemstones from the piece where possible, and you get them back. Why gemstones are usually worth little when gold is bought, and what lab-grown diamonds are, you can read on our page about the value of gemstones.
Melting it yourself does not make your gold worth more. It only makes it measurable, and that happens later in the chain anyway. And a coin that you melt loses its value as a coin for good.
Refining: from mixture to pure gold
After melting, your gold is still a mixture. In an 18 carat piece a quarter of the weight is another metal, often copper or silver. Refining removes those other metals, chemically or by electrolysis, until pure metal remains. There are three classic methods for this.
| Method | How it works | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Chlorine gas Miller process | Chlorine gas is blown through the molten gold. The other metals bind to the chlorine and float on top as slag or escape. The gold itself does not react at that temperature. | About 995 to 996 thousandths, fast and cheap |
| Electrolysis Wohlwill process | A cast bar of at least about 95% gold hangs in a bath with a gold solution. Under current, pure gold settles on a second plate, and the other metals stay behind in the bath. | 999.9 or higher |
| Aqua regia | A mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid dissolves the gold, which neither acid can do on its own. The gold is then precipitated out of it selectively. | Does not work well with a lot of silver: silver does not dissolve and hinders the process |
Electrolysis yields the purest gold, but a lot of gold is tied up in the bath. That is why refineries often choose chlorine gas first, and then electrolysis afterwards if they want the highest purity. Neither method is new: the chlorine gas process was patented in 1867 by Francis Bowyer Miller, of the Sydney Mint, and electrolysis was developed in 1874 by Emil Wohlwill.
And silver?
Silver too is melted, tested and refined. It is classically refined by electrolysis, in a bath of silver nitrate. The copper in the alloy is the main interfering element there. You can read more about your own pieces at selling silver.
Smelter or refinery? The difference, and who does what
In everyday language the two words often get mixed up. The difference is nevertheless simple.
| Smelter | Refinery | |
|---|---|---|
| What happens | The material is liquefied, mixed into one whole and cast, and a sample is taken | The other metals are removed chemically or by electrolysis |
| What comes out | A rough bar or granules with a measured content | Fine gold, as a bar or as granules |
| What it delivers | The real content of the whole | Gold that can go back onto the market as a raw material |
| Who does it | Trading houses and assayers, but also small companies and many jewellers, who melt on a small scale themselves and deliver blocks of gold to a refinery | A small number of specialised companies |
Melting therefore happens in many places, refining in few. In Belgium there is one refinery: EMEKO in Wijnegem. Refining is moreover heavy industry with strict permits: in Antwerp the Flemish minister refused the environmental permit of a refinery at the end of 2022, after which industrial refining there was shut down.
Four companies that melt or refine
By way of illustration, four companies that melt or refine gold and other precious metals, one in Belgium and three abroad. This is not a complete list, and these names do not tell you where a particular piece of jewellery ends up after the sale.
- EMEKO, Wijnegem (Belgium): a refinery, according to an independent audit (2025) for the Responsible Jewellery Council, an organisation for responsible business in the jewellery sector.
- Schöne Edelmetaal, Amsterdam (Netherlands): Umicore’s collection point for the Benelux. According to the company itself, it melts down the material handed in into a bar and then determines the content with a fire assay, in its own laboratory.
- Van der Meulen Edelmetaal, Joure (Netherlands): melts old gold and jewellery scrap in its own smelter.
- Refimet, Spino d’Adda (Italy): a refinery for gold, silver and platinum group metals, according to an audit (2025) for the same organisation. It processes scrap from the jewellery sector among other things.
A refinery does not only process jewellery, by the way. Electronic scrap contains gold too, in small quantities.
300 grams
of gold is what a large European precious metals recycler recovers, by its own account, from a tonne of electronic scrap.
What processing costs, and why you do not get the full rate
Every step in the chain is work: melting, taking a sample, analysing, refining. That is why no buyer pays exactly the world market rate: the offer also includes melting and processing costs. When such costs apply per gram, they weigh more heavily on silver than on gold: a gram of silver is worth much less, so the same cost is a bigger part of the value. For the same reason they weigh more heavily on low carat than on high carat.
At De Munter we go through the rate, the weight and the content together with you, so that you see how the amount comes about. You can see today’s rate on our page about the gold price.
Our advice
Would you like to know what your jewellery, coins or dental gold are worth? Have them valued without obligation. You do not need to clean your jewellery and coins: leave them as they are, because cleaning changes nothing about the gold value. For dental gold, preferably bring only the gold, on its own and without tooth remains. Do keep your identity card at hand: a gold buyer is legally obliged to check and record your identity. We weigh and test your gold in front of you, show you the rate of the day and work out together with you what it is worth. You then decide for yourself whether you sell, without any pressure.