How to Get a Real Phone Quote Before You Sell Your Gold and Silver Coins or Bars

By Carmine • Gold Industry Expert • 19 Years in the Business

Most people preparing to sell gold or silver coins and bars think the process is simple. Call two or three dealers, ask what they are paying today, compare the numbers, and go to whichever one sounded best. It feels like due diligence. It is not.

The problem is not that people are skipping the research. Most sellers do call around. The problem is that they are asking the wrong questions, which means they cannot actually compare anyone in a meaningful way. Whoever sounds the most confident, uses the friendliest tone, or throws out the most impressive-sounding number wins the visit. That is not comparison shopping. That is a coin flip dressed up as research.

After 19 years in this business, I have watched sellers leave hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on the table not because they were careless, but because they did not know which questions to ask or how to ask them. The dealer they drove past to get to the one that sounded better on the phone was often the better offer. This guide will fix that.

The Mistake Almost Every First-Time Seller Makes

When most people call a dealer, they ask some version of the same question:

“How much are you paying for gold today?”

It feels like the right question. It is not.

That question invites a vague, uncommitted answer. Dealers will quote you a percentage, a range, or a number that sounds competitive but means nothing without the full context behind it. By the time you are sitting across the desk with your items on the counter, the terms may look very different from what you heard on the phone.

The right approach is to call ahead with a specific list of questions, and to call more than one dealer before you visit anyone.

Why You Cannot Compare Dealers Without Knowing Which Spot Price They Use

Gold and silver pricing is anchored to the live spot market, which moves continuously throughout the trading day. A quote that sounds great at 10 AM may be meaningless by 2 PM because spot has moved and the dealer has adjusted accordingly.

This is why the single most important question to ask any dealer is not what they are paying today. It is this:

“What are you paying in relation to spot, and where are you sourcing spot from?”

The gold standard for an independent spot price benchmark is Kitco.com. For a deeper explanation of how spot prices work and where they come from, see our guide: Understanding Gold Spot Prices. While you are on the phone with any dealer, have Kitco open in your browser and compare their numbers in real time.

Dealers who operate transparently will reference a publicly verifiable source. Dealers who use their own proprietary spot price, a number they control internally, are giving you a quote you cannot independently verify or meaningfully compare against anyone else.

If you call three dealers and each one is using a different internal spot price, you are not comparison shopping. You are comparing apples to oranges. The only way to make a true comparison is to pin every quote to the same independent benchmark at the same moment in time.

To understand how dealers exploit proprietary spot prices on both the buy and sell side, read: The Spot Price Shell Game: How to Protect Yourself When Buying or Selling Gold and Silver in 2026

The Questions to Ask Before You Visit Anyone

Once you have the dealer’s spot reference, work through this list before the conversation ends.

1. What is your payout percentage relative to spot for my specific items?

Get a number, not a range. A dealer who says “we pay between 90 and 98 percent” is not giving you a quote. Ask them to commit to a specific percentage for the exact items you are bringing in.

2. When will I be paid, and will I receive the full amount at the time of transaction?

This one surprises many sellers. Not every dealer pays in full on the spot. Some dealers are undercapitalized and can only pay a portion upfront, with the remainder to follow days or weeks later. Others send items out to a third-party refiner or broker before they can finalize your payout, which can stretch the timeline significantly.

You should know exactly when and how you will be paid before you hand over anything.

3. Do you handle everything in-house, or do items need to be sent out?

Some dealers do not have on-site testing or assay capability. They receive your items, then ship them elsewhere for verification before finalizing your offer. This adds time, introduces additional handling risk, and in some cases allows dealers to revise their offer after the fact based on a third party’s assessment.

Ask specifically whether testing, assay, and payment all happen on-site during your visit.

4. What forms of payment do you offer?

Cash, check, bank wire, and RTP (Real-Time Payments) are all legitimate options, but they are not equivalent. A check requires a bank hold. A standard bank wire typically processes within one business day. RTP is the newest generation of electronic payment, accepted by leading financial institutions, and settles instantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends and holidays.

Know your options before you walk in.

The Condition Problem: Why Phone Quotes Can Fall Apart In Person

Here is one of the most common ways sellers get burned, and one of the hardest to protect yourself against over the phone.

A dealer quotes you a strong price. You show up. They examine your items and suddenly discover condition issues that justify a meaningfully lower offer. The coins are “worn.” The bars have “handling marks.” The packaging is “damaged.” Each issue comes with a deduction.

This practice exists on a spectrum. Legitimate dealers do factor condition into pricing for numismatic coins, and that is reasonable. But some dealers use condition as a systematic negotiating tool, a way to bait you in with a strong phone quote and then renegotiate once your items are on their counter.

One well-known national dealer once claimed that a shipment of brand-new 1-ounce Swiss bars in assay were “falling apart” and applied a significant deduction on a large-quantity sale. The bars were in factory-new condition. Here is what actually happened: the bars came sealed in hard plastic AssayCards. Those cards ship from the manufacturer with a thin protective film applied to the front and back. On a brand-new card, the corners of that protective film will naturally have a very slight separation from the card. That is simply how they come straight from the manufacturer. The bars were brand new. The protective film was intact. The dealer characterized that normal, expected detail as the bars being in damaged condition and used it to justify a major deduction. When the seller pushed back and asked for a reassessment, the dealer stood by its position. The seller took a significant loss on a transaction involving bars that were, by any reasonable standard, in perfect new condition.

The only reliable protection against condition manipulation is doing business face to face, with a dealer you can have a real-time conversation with and the ability to walk away if the offer changes from what you were quoted.

Phone quotes are useful for narrowing your options. They are not a contract. Whenever possible, bring your items in person rather than shipping them to a dealer you have not vetted thoroughly.

Prepare Before You Call

Before you pick up the phone, have this information ready:

• The exact items you are selling (coin or bar name, country of origin if relevant)
• The weight and quantity
• The condition, as honestly as you can describe it
• Whether items are in original packaging, capsules, or slabs

The more specific you are, the more meaningful the quote will be. A dealer who gives you a firm number based on a detailed description is far more reliable than one who quotes you a broad percentage before knowing what you have.

How We Do Business at PV Bullion & Gold Exchange

I want to be transparent about our own process, because I think it is relevant.

At PV Bullion & Gold Exchange, we reference Kitco for spot pricing. We do not use a proprietary internal ticker.

All testing and assay is performed on-site, in-house, using professional-grade equipment, with at least two of every instrument for redundancy. Nothing leaves the building. Nothing is sent to a third party. You get a verified offer based on what is in front of us, during your visit.

We are well-capitalized and able to pay in full, immediately, for transactions up to and including seven figures. We keep substantial cash on hand, all secured in our state-of-the-art on-site vault. We offer payment by cash, check, bank wire, and RTP.

On condition: because we do business face to face, we may note condition issues on certain items, but you always have the option to take your items and walk away. We do not quote you a strong percentage on the phone and then invent condition problems in person to justify paying you less. That is a common practice among dishonest dealers: they will complain about the most minor, normal imperfections when buying from you, use those invented issues to negotiate your payout down, and then turn around and sell those same items as brand new and perfect. We do not operate that way.

Our hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 12 PM to 5 PM. We require a $2,000 minimum transaction. Our facility is fragrance and odor free.

If you are preparing to sell gold or silver coins or bars and want to discuss your items before visiting, call us at 904-686-7686.

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Carmine is the owner of PV Bullion & Gold Exchange in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, a licensed and insured precious metals dealer specializing in gold and silver coins and bars. Learn more about selling to PV Bullion.