Dealer Selling Price
Also: Selling price, Retail price, Offer price, Retail ask
The dealer selling price is the price at which a precious-metals dealer sells a product to the buyer — it always sits above the spot price and includes minting or refining costs, the dealer margin and any VAT.
The dealer selling price — also called the retail or offer price — is the price a buyer pays a commercial dealer when acquiring precious-metal products (bars, coins, granules). It is made up of the current spot price plus a premium (agio) that covers all of the dealer's costs and margins. The dealer selling price is therefore always higher than the bare raw-material price on the international futures markets.
What makes up the dealer selling price
The dealer selling price is built from several layers of cost:
| Component | Description | Typical scale |
|---|---|---|
| Spot price | Current market price of the troy ounce | Base (100 %) |
| Minting / production cost | Manufacturing effort for coins or bars | 1–4 % |
| Dealer margin | Distributor's mark-up | 1–5 % |
| Logistics & insurance | Transport, storage, insurance | 0.5–2 % |
| VAT (where applicable) | 23 % on silver, platinum, palladium; 0 % on investment gold | variable |
For investment gold in Ireland no VAT applies (VAT Consolidation Act 2010, Schedule 1; EU Directive 2006/112/EC), which is why the dealer mark-up there is comparatively modest. For silver, platinum and palladium, by contrast, most dealers charge the full standard Irish VAT rate of 23 % on the gross price. Some silver dealers apply the margin scheme (special second-hand goods scheme) instead, under which VAT falls only on the trading margin — this results in an effectively lower mark-up but varies from one supplier to another.
Formula
Dealer selling price = spot price × fine weight + premium (abs.) + VAT (if any)
If you want to know the pure metal value of an item, work it out with the melt value calculator. The difference between the melt value and the dealer selling price paid corresponds essentially to the premium.
Dealer selling price vs. buying price
The buying price is the mirror image: the price at which the dealer buys the same goods back. The gap between the dealer selling price (sale) and the buying price (buy-back) is called the spread.
- Dealer selling price (ask): the buyer pays this on purchase.
- Buying price (bid): the seller receives this on resale.
- Spread: dealer selling price minus buying price — the implicit transaction fee.
A tight spread (as with 1 oz standard coins such as the Krugerrand) points to a liquid, competitive market. Exotic products, collector coins or small denominations often carry considerably wider spreads.
What drives the dealer selling price
- Spot-price moves: rising or falling precious-metal prices feed through to the dealer selling price at once.
- Denomination: small units (1 g, 2 g) carry proportionally higher production costs.
- Product type: minted bullion coins are dearer than cast bars of the same weight.
- Demand: in times of crisis or supply shortage, premiums can rise sharply.
- Dealer competition: more suppliers in the market squeeze margins and thus the dealer selling price.
Using the current gold price as a reference point, together with a comparison via the purchase price calculator, helps buyers assess different dealers' offers objectively.
Tax notes (Ireland)
From a tax standpoint the dealer selling price is the acquisition cost. It matters for working out any chargeable gain on sale: a private individual's gain on selling bullion is liable to Capital Gains Tax at 33 %, after the annual personal exemption of EUR 1,270, and there is no holding-period relief. This is not tax advice — for your individual situation please contact a qualified adviser; the Revenue Commissioners (revenue.ie) are the authority here.
In brief
The dealer selling price is the price actually payable for physical precious metal and always sits above the spot price. When comparing offers you should always look at the total price including postage and taxes — the mark-up over spot is the decisive point of comparison.