Who we are, and what we will never do

Why we price the lot, not the gram

A price by the gram is a price for an average, and the box in your wardrobe is not an average. It has 9ct and 22ct tangled in the same knot. It has a clasp with a steel spring in it, three chains that are plated and one ring that is not gold at all. It may hold a brooch worth more than everything else in the box. A figure worked out at the kitchen table from a rate on a website cannot allow for any of that.

So there is nothing on this site that works a figure out, and no rate published on it. What happens instead is that somebody looks. You send photographs first and get a rough idea back before anything is posted. Then every piece in the parcel is weighed on its own, checked for its metal, and listed with what the checks showed and what they could not show. One offer for everything comes back to you in writing, with all of that attached.

This asks more of you than a number on a screen does. What you get for it is a figure arrived at by a person who has had your items in their hands, and the right to say no to the whole thing, at no cost, once you have seen what they found.

The four steps, from the first photograph to the money arriving, are set out on how it works. What an offer contains, and everything you can do with one, is on offers, returns and payment, and what decides the worth of each metal is on selling gold by post and selling silver by post.

What we hold ourselves to

Seven things, in the order they matter to somebody deciding whether to put a parcel in the post.

• Ask before you postPhotograph what you have and send it to us before anything leaves the house. You get a rough idea back from a person, free, and no follow-up you did not ask for. If something is not worth posting, we say so before you pack it.
• Everything is itemisedWhen the parcel is opened, every piece in it is listed and described, including the bits you could not identify and the bits that turn out to be worth nothing. The list comes with your offer, so you see what we received, in our words, before you decide anything.
• One written offer for the lotIt arrives in writing, it lists what it covers, and you can put it down and think about it. Nobody waits on the telephone for your answer.
• Nothing is sold until you say yesYou accept by doing something: pressing the accept button in your offer, or telling us in writing (terms, clause 6.1). Silence is never treated as acceptance, opening a link is not a yes, and nothing is processed while you are thinking. Treating a seller's silence as a yes was one of the concerns the Office of Fair Trading raised with postal gold buyers between November 2009 and February 2011, so the promise not to do it is written where you can check it.
• Free tracked returnDecline the whole lot, or ask for part of it back and get a fresh offer for the rest: what comes back travels by tracked, signed-for post at our cost. Nothing is deducted for the checking, and nobody telephones afterwards to change your mind.
• We tell you when something is worth more than its metalA signed brooch, a sovereign with a date collectors look for, a watch by a known maker whether it runs or not, antique silver or period jewellery. If a piece may be worth more to a specialist, an auction house or a dealer, we tell you before any offer, so you can take it there. We are one buyer, not a valuer, and we may miss something a specialist would see.
• A person handles itOne person weighs your parcel, checks it, writes the offer and answers you when you query a figure. Your items are not passed to someone who has never seen them.

Six of the seven are also written into the terms, so you can hold us to them: clause 2.1 for the reply to your photographs, 4.4 and 5.1 for the list and the offer, 6.1 to 6.3 for acceptance and returns, and 4.4 and 10.3 for pieces worth more whole.

What this is, and what it is not

• An outright purchaseWe buy outright. There is no loan, no interest, nothing held as security and nothing to redeem later. Money moves once, by bank transfer, after you have accepted a written offer, and the items become ours only when it reaches your account (terms, clause 7.1).
• Not a valuation serviceWe are not valuers and we are not an auction house. What we produce is an offer to buy, which is a different document from a probate or insurance valuation and a different number from what a piece might fetch at auction. Where one of those routes might serve you better, we say so. Valuation, appraisal or offer sets the differences out.
• Not an assay officeAssaypost is an independent buyer. It is not an assay office and has no connection with the UK assay offices. Where this site explains hallmarks, it cites the assay offices' own published guidance.
• Not a regulated financial serviceBuying precious metal from the public is not a regulated financial activity, so no financial regulator oversees it and we will not imply one (clause 1.1). What does apply, in full: consumer protection and advertising rules, data protection, hallmarking law when metal is resold, and the identity and provenance checks on the responsible sourcing page. The terms set out the contract itself.

Things you will not read on this site

• A figure you can work out before we have seen itThere is nothing here to work a figure out, no rate table and no price by the gram. A number produced before anybody has handled your items is a guess with a pound sign in front of it.
• That we pay more than anyone elseNobody can prove that daily, for every item, so we do not say it, and we do not compare our figures with another buyer's. What your offer does show is everything in the lot: each item, its weight, the tests used and what they found (terms, clause 5.1).
• That a test settles it beyond doubtEvery test has limits, so your offer lists the tests used on each piece and anything they could not establish (clause 5.1).
• A badge we have not earnedNo approval, accreditation, membership or regulator we do not hold, and none whose exact scope we cannot show you on somebody else's register.
• A history we have not hadNo customer story, no review, no payout total and no years in the trade we have not had. Where this site describes what happens to a parcel, it is describing the process every parcel will follow.
• A reason to decide todayNo countdown, no disappearing figure and no deadline invented to make you choose before you are ready. Each offer states how long it stays open; if you need longer you only have to ask, and nobody telephones after you have declined one (clauses 5.2, 10.2 and 6.5).

We are new, and this is what that means

No parcel has been through this business yet: no offer, no payment and no return, so there is nothing we can show you that we have already done. Below is what you can check for yourself today, and what is not there yet.

Check us before you post

These are the checks in how to check a postal gold buyer before you send anything, with our answer to each and where to confirm it. An answer appears here only once it is on the record, so a gap is shown as a gap.

What happens to your data is in a table in the privacy notice: every category we would hold, why, on what lawful basis, and when it is deleted. The complaints route and the identity and provenance procedure are published too, with the source and date behind each legal point.

Not there yet

Sixteen facts a seller would reasonably want are not set yet, and none has been filled with a substitute. No stock portrait stands in for a handler, no invented turnaround for a real one, no borrowed testimonial for a review, and no cover figure is printed that we could not stand behind. Wherever you would expect one of them, a short line says it is not there yet and links here.

Who you are dealing with

There is no company number above because there is no company. Assaypost is a trading name used by one person, named above, who is personally responsible for every offer this site makes and every parcel it receives. If the business is ever incorporated, the company number, registered office and place of registration will appear here, in the footer and in clause 1 of the terms on the same day.

No trade membership and no accreditation is claimed, because none has been joined. Anything we do join is listed here with its exact scope and a link that lets you check it against the body's own register rather than take our word for it. See what you can check today

If we get something wrong

Tell us through the contact page and it gets fixed in public. A correction goes on the page where the mistake appeared, and where it changes something a seller relies on, the version and date at the foot of the document change with it.

If the thing that went wrong was your case rather than a page, the complaints process has three stages, and says who deals with each. In a one-person business a review cannot always be done by somebody different; when that happens, the reply says so and points you to the independent route set out on the complaints page.