What do I need to bring to sell a gold bar?

Big Bullion · Published 12 October 2026 · Updated 12 October 2026 · 5 min read

Reviewed by the Big Bullion team, 12 October 2026

Bring the bar itself and your NRIC or passport — that's all you need. The assay card and the original packaging help if you still have them, but neither is required, and there's no receipt to produce either.

What you actually need

• The bar itself.
• Your NRIC or your passport. We verify identity on every buy-back because we're licensed and regulated by the Ministry of Law as a precious metals dealer, licence PS20250000846, and that licence requires it.
• Nothing else. You don't need a receipt, and we buy back bars we didn't sell you in the first place.

That's the whole list. Everything else — the assay card, the original packaging — is optional, and we'll explain what each one actually does below.

The assay card and the packaging, if you still have them

A minted bar usually comes sealed in a card carrying an assay certificate and its own serial number. If you still have that card, and the packaging it came in, bring them — they save time at the counter because the serial number lets us identify the bar quickly. But neither is required. We test the metal itself either way, and opening the packaging or losing the card doesn't reduce what we pay you.

A cast bar typically doesn't come with a card at all, so there's nothing to bring beyond the bar itself.

What happens if the certificate is missing

Nothing changes about the price. We weigh the bar and test it under ultrasound and X-ray fluorescence regardless of whether a card is present, and that test, not the paperwork, is what the price is based on. The one thing worth flagging yourself is if a card you do have carries a serial number that doesn't match the bar, or comes from a maker we don't recognise — that's worth asking us about at the counter, though it still doesn't stop us testing and pricing the metal itself.

How we test it

Every bar goes through the same checks, in front of you, at the counter:

• Precision weighing, which is where most fakes fail.
• Ultrasound, on a Sigma Metalytics Precious Metal Verifier, which reads what's inside the bar rather than just its surface.
• X-ray fluorescence, which confirms what the surface metal actually is.

When you're paid

A bar is paid at the rate for that product, so once it's weighed and tested there's nothing further to work out. Under S$20,000 we pay by PayNow or bank transfer the same day; S$20,000 and above takes two to five business days, and either way the payment goes to an account in your own name.

If you'd rather put the value towards a different bar or coin instead of taking the money, that's a trade-in, available on bars the same way it is on jewellery.

Why we test rather than take your word for it

None of this is about doubting you. It's the same three checks on every bar that comes across the counter, whichever refiner made it and whoever is bringing it in, because the price has to be based on what the metal actually is rather than on a story about where it came from. That's also why we don't ask where the bar came from or why you're selling it — we verify who you are, not how you got the bar.

We sell physical gold and silver. Nothing on this page is financial advice.