---
title: "Selling inherited gold, silver and coins: the tax position in plain terms"
description: "Why an inherited item is treated as acquired at its probate value, what the chattels rule covers, and which coins sit outside Capital Gains Tax entirely."
canonical: "https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/tax-when-you-sell-inherited-gold-and-coins"
published: "2026-09-19"
modified: "2026-09-24"
language: "en-GB"
publisher: "Assaypost"
---

# Selling inherited gold, silver and coins: the tax position in plain terms

Written at the Assaypost bench, checked before publication. Published 19 September 2026. Updated 24 September 2026.

**The short answer:** Most people selling an inherited tin of sovereigns or a parent's jewellery pay no Capital Gains Tax. An inherited item is treated as acquired at its market value on the date of death, not at what the person who died paid for it, so a sale made not long after the death usually produces little or no gain. Sovereigns dated 1837 or later and Britannias are sterling currency and sit outside the tax, while Krugerrands and other foreign coins are chargeable and get no chattels exemption. Other possessions, jewellery included, are exempt when sold for no more than six thousand pounds, with a set sold to the same buyer counted as one item. Nobody here is an accountant, and none of this is advice on your own position.

## Selling as the executor, or selling as the beneficiary

This is the distinction most often missed, and it decides everything that follows. There are two quite different sales hiding inside the phrase selling my mother's jewellery, and which one you are making depends on whether the item has come to you yet.

- **Selling as the personal representative**: The estate still owns the item and you are selling it as executor or administrator to raise money for the estate. HMRC's helpsheet HS282 says that during the period of administration the personal representatives may be liable to Capital Gains Tax if they sell or otherwise dispose of any of the assets in the estate, and that the gain is chargeable on the personal representative rather than on the legatee where the asset has not been formally transferred.
- **Selling as a legatee or beneficiary**: The item has been transferred to you and it is now yours. HS282 treats all assets acquired by a legatee following a death as though the legatee acquired them on the date of death, at the market value on the date of death. From then on any gain is yours and goes on your own return, not the estate's.

The practical difference is whose allowance, whose rate and whose return is in play, and there is a timing question underneath it that only an accountant can answer for your estate. What matters for a seller is to know which of the two you are doing before you agree a sale, and to say so on paper. The [guide for executors](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/selling-jewellery-before-probate-is-granted) covers what can and cannot be done before the grant is issued.

> **We are not accountants**
>
> Nothing on this site is tax advice and nothing here can be. Capital Gains Tax turns on facts about you as well as facts about the item, the thresholds and rates change, and an estate has choices that a beneficiary does not. Ask an accountant, or the solicitor handling the estate. Where this page and your accountant disagree, your accountant is right.

## The chattels rule, and what counts as a set

Personal possessions have their own corner of the Capital Gains Tax rules, and it is a generous one. GOV.UK's guidance is that you may have to pay Capital Gains Tax if you make a profit when you sell a personal possession for six thousand pounds or more, and the examples it gives are jewellery, paintings, antiques, coins and stamps. Where the consideration for the disposal does not exceed that amount, section 262 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 says the gain is not a chargeable gain at all. Above it, section 262(2) caps the chargeable gain at five-thirds of the amount by which the sale price exceeds the threshold, so a possession sold for a little more than the threshold carries only a small gain.

The word doing the work is possession, singular. Sell a ring for less than the threshold and the question is closed. The complication arrives when the thing you are holding is not one object but several that belong together, because the statute counts those as one.

Section 262(4) is explicit about it. Where two or more assets which have formed part of a set of articles, all owned at one time by one person, are disposed of by that person to the same person, or to persons acting in concert or who are connected persons, the transactions are treated as a single transaction disposing of a single asset. GOV.UK puts the same rule in plainer words and gives chessmen, books by the same author, matching vases and sets of china as its examples.

Two cases come up again and again in a family's box, and they behave differently.

- **A canteen of cutlery** is the classic set. Twelve place settings by one maker in one pattern are articles that have formed part of a set, and selling them as a lot to one buyer is one disposal of one asset for this purpose. Splitting the canteen between two buyers who are acting in concert or are connected persons does not change that, whether the sales happen on the same day or years apart. Splitting it genuinely, to unconnected buyers at arm's length, is a different matter and is exactly the point on which to take advice rather than a guess.
- **A run of sovereigns** dated 1837 or later never needs the set question answered, because of the coin rule in the next section. Sovereigns dated before 1837 and bars are ordinary possessions, so the set rule can bite there. Foreign coins such as Krugerrands get no chattels exemption at all, set or no set.

Do not treat the threshold as the only number in play. There is also an annual exempt amount. For the 2026 to 2027 tax year GOV.UK gives it as three thousand pounds for an individual, and the same for the personal representatives of an estate, who have it for the tax year of the death and the two tax years after (HS282). It is changed in Budgets, so check the current figure on [GOV.UK's Capital Gains Tax pages](https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax) before you rely on it.

## Why sovereigns and Britannias sit outside the charge

A sovereign is not only a piece of gold. It is money, and it says so on its face. Section 21 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 sets out what counts as an asset and expressly excepts sterling from the currency it captures, which is the statutory root of everything below. HMRC's Capital Gains Manual applies that to sovereigns minted in 1837 and later years and to Britannia gold coins. Older sovereigns are no longer legal tender, so HMRC treats them as ordinary possessions under the chattels rule instead.

The Royal Mint states the consequence directly: all gold, silver and platinum bullion coins produced by The Royal Mint are classed as free of Capital Gains Tax, because they are UK legal tender, and the benefit is for UK residents. It names Britannias, Sovereigns and the Queen's Beasts range. On the other side of the line it is equally direct: Capital Gains Tax is chargeable on all gold, silver and platinum coins that are not produced by The Royal Mint, as they are not considered to be UK legal tender, and all gold and silver bullion bars are chargeable as well.

**Which of the things in a typical tin sit inside the charge**

| What is in the tin | Legal British currency | Capital Gains Tax position |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Sovereigns and half sovereigns dated 1837 or later | Yes | Outside the charge as sterling currency |
| Sovereigns dated before 1837 | No, no longer legal tender | An ordinary possession: exempt if sold for no more than the chattels threshold |
| Gold and silver Britannias | Yes | Outside the charge as sterling currency |
| Krugerrand | No, South African currency | Chargeable, and the chattels exemption does not apply to it |
| Maple Leaf, Eagle, Philharmonic, Panda | No, foreign currency | Chargeable, as for the Krugerrand |
| Gold or silver bars of any size or maker | No | Chargeable, subject to the chattels rule and your allowance |
| Scrap jewellery, a tea set, loose silver | No | Chargeable, subject to the chattels rule and your allowance |
| A watch sold as a watch | No | HMRC treats clocks and watches as machinery with a limited life, so a gain is normally exempt unless it was used in a business |

The Krugerrand is worth naming because it is the foreign coin most often found in a family tin, and it is easily taken for a sovereign's equal for tax. It is South African currency rather than sterling, so it is chargeable, and HMRC's manual says the chattels exemption does not apply to coins of that kind at all. Whether any gain actually arises on it is a separate question, and for an inherited coin sold not long after the death it usually does not, for the reason in the next section.

None of this touches what a coin is worth or how it should be sold. A sovereign with a scarce date or mint mark can be worth considerably more than its gold, and the [sovereigns guide](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/selling-sovereigns-without-losing-premium) explains how to tell before anything is treated as metal.

## The point most pages miss: your cost is the probate value

Almost everything written about gold and tax is written for an investor. It assumes you bought something, that you know what you paid, and that the gain is the difference between then and now. An executor or a beneficiary is in a completely different position, and the rule that governs it is the one that makes most of these sales come to nothing.

Section 62 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 provides that the assets of which a deceased person was competent to dispose are deemed to be acquired on death by the personal representatives at their market value at the date of death, and are not deemed to be disposed of by the deceased on death. HS282 says the same for a legatee: assets acquired following a death are treated as acquired on the date of death, at the market value on the date of death.

> **What that means in practice**
>
> Your cost for Capital Gains Tax is the probate value, not the price your grandfather paid in 1974. If the estate's possessions were valued at open market value as at the date of death, and you sell soon afterwards at something close to that valuation, the gain is nil or trivial. The thing that produces a real gain is time: a coin held by a beneficiary for fifteen years after the death has fifteen years of movement behind it, and the probate value is still the starting point.

That is also the practical argument for getting the estate's possessions valued properly rather than estimating them. A probate valuation is not only a number for the estate return. It is the acquisition cost that any later sale is measured against, and an estate that recorded a vague or absent figure has left its beneficiaries with nothing to measure from. Which kind of valuation you need, and who produces it, is set out in [valuation, appraisal or offer](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/valuation-appraisal-or-offer).

GOV.UK's own guidance on working out a gain on a personal possession points the same way: use the market value where you inherited the item and do not know the Inheritance Tax value, and deduct fees such as those for valuing.

## What to keep, and what an accountant will ask you for

The paperwork that answers a tax question is the same paperwork that answers a beneficiary's question, and it is easier to keep it as you go than to reconstruct it afterwards.

- The probate valuation, or whatever figure the estate used for household goods and personal possessions, with the date it was prepared and who prepared it.
- The date of death, because that is the date the acquisition is deemed to happen on.
- The itemised list of what was sent to a buyer, so that a lot can be broken back down into the pieces it contained.
- The written offer as it was made, and the payment record, so the consideration for each disposal is evidenced rather than remembered.
- Any valuation or selling fees, which GOV.UK's guidance allows to be deducted when the gain is worked out.
- A note of whether the sale was made by the estate or by you personally, and when the item was transferred to you if it was.

An itemised list matters more here than people expect. A single offer for a mixed lot is one figure, and a tax question may need to know which part of it was the sovereigns and which was the scrap. The [offers and returns page](https://assaypost.co.uk/offers-returns-and-payment) explains what the written offer contains and what is kept with it.

## Seller risks and exceptions

- Assuming all gold is exempt because sovereigns are. The exemption is about legal tender, not about metal. A Krugerrand, a bar and a bracelet are all chargeable assets.
- Assuming nothing is due because the item was a gift from a relative who is still alive. This page is about inheritance. A lifetime gift is acquired at market value at the date of the gift and is a different calculation.
- Splitting a set to get under a threshold. Section 262(4) exists precisely to catch disposals of a set to the same person or to persons acting in concert or connected with each other, and it treats them as one.
- Selling before the grant and sorting the tax out later. That is an authority problem before it is a tax problem, and it is covered in the [executor's guide](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/selling-jewellery-before-probate-is-granted).
- Treating an offer as a probate valuation. HMRC's manual requires open market value at the date of death, and a buyer's offer made months later is not that. It cannot be used as your acquisition cost either.
- Relying on a figure found on a page. Thresholds, allowances and rates change at Budgets. Check GOV.UK, and ask an accountant where the amounts are large.

## When not to rely on this page

> **Take proper advice in any of these cases**
>
> The estate is paying Inheritance Tax, or may be. The possessions are worth enough that the chattels threshold is plainly in play. You are an executor and are not sure whether the gain belongs to the estate or to a beneficiary. You are not resident in the UK, or the person who died was not. There are several beneficiaries and the items are being split between you. Anything is being sold to a relative, a friend or a company connected with one of you.

Assaypost does not handle, calculate, report or withhold anybody's tax, and does not need to know your tax position in order to make an offer. What you are given is a list of what arrived, what each piece was found to be, and one written offer for the lot, which is the evidence an accountant will ask you for. The [probate and estate page](https://assaypost.co.uk/probate-and-estate-jewellery) sets out how an estate sale is handled here, and the [inherited jewellery page](https://assaypost.co.uk/inherited-jewellery) is the place to start if there is no estate and the piece is simply yours.

## Questions sellers ask

### Do I pay tax on jewellery I inherited?

Usually no Capital Gains Tax, and the reason is the acquisition cost. An inherited item is treated as acquired at its market value on the date of death, so a sale made not long after the death produces little or no gain. For a single item a chargeable gain can arise only where it sells for more than the chattels threshold and its value has risen since the death. Inheritance Tax on the estate is a separate question for the executors.

### Are gold sovereigns exempt from Capital Gains Tax?

The Royal Mint states that its bullion coins, Sovereigns and Britannias among them, are free of Capital Gains Tax for UK residents because they are legal British currency. HMRC's manual applies this to sovereigns minted in 1837 and later; earlier ones are treated as ordinary possessions under the chattels rule. Coins not produced by The Royal Mint are not UK legal tender and are chargeable, and so are bullion bars above the chattels threshold.

### Are Krugerrands treated the same as sovereigns?

No. A Krugerrand is a South African coin and is not British legal tender, so it is a chargeable asset, and HMRC's manual says the chattels exemption does not apply to it. Whether tax is actually due on one you inherited is a separate question, and for a coin sold soon after a death it often is not, because the probate value is your cost.

### Is a canteen of cutlery one item or twelve?

For this purpose it is one. Section 262(4) treats assets that have formed part of a set, sold by the same owner to the same person or to connected persons or persons acting in concert, as a single disposal of a single asset. A canteen is a textbook case of it.

### Does Assaypost report my sale to HMRC?

No. Your tax position is yours and is not calculated, deducted or reported here. What you are given is the itemised list, the written offer and the payment record, which is what an accountant will want to see.

### What if the estate never had the jewellery valued?

Then there is no recorded acquisition cost, and that is worth fixing before you sell rather than afterwards. Speak to the solicitor handling the estate or to a probate valuer. GOV.UK's guidance allows the market value to be used where you inherited an item and do not know the Inheritance Tax value.

## Sources

1. [GOV.UK — Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions](https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax-personal-possessions) (accessed 21 September 2026)
2. [GOV.UK — Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions: possessions that are part of a set](https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax-personal-possessions/sets) (accessed 21 September 2026)
3. [GOV.UK — Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions: work out your gain](https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax-personal-possessions/work-out-your-gain) (accessed 21 September 2026)
4. [GOV.UK — Capital Gains Tax rates and allowances: annual exempt amount by tax year](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/capital-gains-tax-rates-and-allowances) (accessed 21 September 2026)
5. [HMRC Capital Gains Manual CG78305 — foreign currency: sovereigns, Britannias and Krugerrands](https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg78305) (accessed 21 September 2026)
6. [HMRC Capital Gains Manual CG76904 — wasting assets: clocks and watches](https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg76904) (accessed 21 September 2026)
7. [GOV.UK — Death, personal representatives and legatees (Self Assessment helpsheet HS282)](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/death-personal-representatives-and-legatees-hs282-self-assessment-helpsheet) (accessed 21 September 2026)
8. [legislation.gov.uk — Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, section 62: death](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/12/section/62) (accessed 21 September 2026)
9. [legislation.gov.uk — Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, section 262: chattels exemption and sets](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/12/section/262) (accessed 21 September 2026)
10. [legislation.gov.uk — Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, section 21: assets and the sterling exception](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/12/section/21) (accessed 21 September 2026)
11. [The Royal Mint — Bullion and Capital Gains Tax](https://www.royalmint.com/gold-price/capital-gains-tax-on-investments/) (accessed 21 September 2026)
12. [HMRC Inheritance Tax Manual IHTM21041 — how we value household goods](https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/inheritance-tax-manual/ihtm21041) (accessed 21 September 2026)

## Related

- [Selling jewellery as an executor: what to do before probate is granted](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/selling-jewellery-before-probate-is-granted)
- [Valuation, appraisal or offer: which one you actually need](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/valuation-appraisal-or-offer)
- [Selling sovereigns without losing the premium](https://assaypost.co.uk/guides/selling-sovereigns-without-losing-premium)
- [Probate and estates](https://assaypost.co.uk/probate-and-estate-jewellery)
- [Inherited jewellery](https://assaypost.co.uk/inherited-jewellery)
- [Gold coins and sovereigns](https://assaypost.co.uk/what-we-buy/gold-coins-and-sovereigns)
- [Offers, returns and payment](https://assaypost.co.uk/offers-returns-and-payment)

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