Selling an engagement ring in New York City

Sell Diamond Engagement Ring is an independent referral service, not a buyer, pawnshop or dealer. When you call or send the form, we connect you with an independent buyer in New York, who makes any offer. The line is answered in New York City.

The rules a New York City buyer must follow

New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) licenses businesses that buy and sell used goods. Its rules give a seller a clear picture of what should happen when you sell a ring in the city.

The rule	What it means for you	Where it comes from
A Secondhand Dealer General license	A business that buys used jewelry in NYC must hold one	NYC Admin. Code 20-265
License and complaint sign posted	You can see the license where you sell	6 RCNY 1-03(a)
License number on printed matter	Your receipt should show the DCWP license number	6 RCNY 1-05
A scale, and the troy weight told	Precious metal is weighed and you are told its troy weight	6 RCNY 3-81
An approved scale	Approved by NY State Agriculture and Markets, reading to 0.01 troy ounce or finer, Class II or III	1 NYCRR 220.1(a)
Photo ID and signature	You show ID and sign in front of the buyer; a copy of the ID is not enough	6 RCNY 2-101
A record of the sale	The ring, its metal and stones, and your details are recorded and kept for 3 years	NYC Admin. Code 20-273(a)
Photos kept electronically	For precious metal items, digital photos are kept on LeadsOnline for 6 years	20-273(b); 38 RCNY 21-04(c), 21-07(b)
No sales by minors	A buyer cannot buy used items from a minor	20-268(b)
A 15-day hold	A used item cannot be resold within 15 days of purchase	20-268(d)

Records are open to DCWP inspectors and the NYPD. That can feel intrusive, but it protects sellers as well: a ring sold to a licensed buyer is recorded, photographed and held before it can be passed on. Businesses that buy and sell exclusively online are exempt from the license, so these checks do not apply to them.

Pawning is licensed separately

Lending money on a ring is not buying it. In New York City, a pawnbroker needs a separate DCWP Pawnbroker license. If you want money for a while and the ring back, read our guide on whether to pawn or sell an engagement ring first.

The Diamond District

Much of New York’s diamond trade sits on one block of midtown Manhattan: West 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue (the Avenue of the Americas). According to the 47th Street Business Improvement District, it has the largest concentration of diamond and jewelry related companies and retailers.

The district has a long history. The BID traces the trade to about 1790 on Maiden Lane in lower Manhattan; jewelers moved to Canal Street and the Bowery in the 1920s; in 1923 the real estate broker Fenimore Goode began building for the diamond trade on West 47th Street; and the move uptown grew in the 1940s, when European Jewish refugees, among them diamond merchants and artisans, opened businesses there.

Getting there

• B, D, F or M train to 47-50 Streets Rockefeller Center.
• 6 train to 51st Street.
• 1 train to 50th Street.
• N, Q or R train to 49th Street.
• Buses: M1 to M5 on Fifth and Madison Avenues, M50 on 49th and 50th Streets, M7 on Broadway.

Hours vary from business to business, so check before you go. The district is a good place to ask more than one buyer about a ring, because so many are close together.

Across the five boroughs

Not every seller wants to go to midtown. Buyers of used jewelry work across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, and the same city rules apply in every borough. Wherever you sell, look for the posted DCWP license, the license number on the receipt, the troy weight told to you and a written offer.

What to bring

• Photo ID with a signature: an official document from a US, state, county or city government, a public agency or an employer, or a numbered police, fire or postal badge.
• The grading report, if there is one, from GIA, IGI or another lab. GIA offers a Report Check on its website where a report number can be looked up.
• The receipt or an appraisal, if you kept one. An insurance appraisal is not an offer, but it describes the ring.
• The box and papers, for a designer ring.
• A note of any work done: resizing, a new setting, a stone replaced.

Comparing offers in the city

Ask each buyer for a written offer that says what is being bought (the whole ring, or the stone alone), how the stone was described, and the troy weight and karat used for the metal. Gold is marked by karat, and the karat divided by 24 gives the gold share: 14K is 58.3% and 18K is 75%. Expect any offer to be below what the ring cost in a store, because a retail price includes the store’s costs and margin. For a fuller comparison of the kinds of buyer, see where to sell a diamond engagement ring, and for the steps of the sale, how to sell an engagement ring.

Questions people ask