Selling Gold in New Orleans, LA: Tax and the Estate Jewelry Trade
New Orleans is unusual on two counts: Louisiana exempts investment bullion from sales tax, and the French Quarter's Royal Street antique houses have traded estate jewelry and silver for more than a century. Both facts change how you should price and sell metal here.
Bullion is exempt. Jewelry is not.
Louisiana exempts platinum, gold, and silver bullion valued solely on metal content, whether coin or ingot, from state sales tax under Louisiana Revised Statutes § 47:301(16)(b)(ii), enacted through House Bill 396 (Act 340, 2017). That exemption took effect October 1, 2017. It also covers numismatic coins with a sales price of no more than $1,000, and coins sold at a national, statewide, or multi-parish trade show regardless of price.
What stays taxable matters just as much on the sell side. Numismatic coins priced above $1,000 (outside qualifying trade shows), rounds, tokens, medallions, collectible paper money, and jewelry remain subject to state and local sales taxes. Copper and palladium are taxable too. So a Krugerrand and a gold bracelet are treated differently at the register, even if the metal weight is identical.
The rate behind that distinction is not small. Louisiana's state sales tax rose from 4.45% to 5% on January 1, 2025, and the combined New Orleans rate now runs 10% (5% state plus 5% Orleans Parish), with some special districts at 11%. On a purchase, that gap is what the exemption spares you. On a sale to a dealer you are not usually paying sales tax anyway, but the same rules explain why bullion and jewelry sit in separate parts of a dealer's book. If you are comparing offers, weigh coins and bullion separately from scrap and estate jewelry.
How a buying desk must operate here
Louisiana defines a "secondhand dealer" broadly under R.S. 37:1861 to include anyone buying or selling jewelry, silverware, diamonds, and precious metals in the form of bars, ingots, or rods. If a shop is buying your gold, it is almost certainly operating under this statute, and the rules are worth knowing before you walk in.
First, cash is off the table for metal. Under R.S. 37:1864.3, a secondhand dealer may not enter into any cash transaction to pay for a precious metal object; payment must be made by check payable to the seller. If a buyer offers you cash for gold, that is a red flag, not a convenience. Bring identification and expect to be paid by check.
Second, your sale is reported. R.S. 37:1866 requires every licensed secondhand dealer to deliver to the chief of police or parish sheriff, every day before noon, a legible copy of the prior day's transaction entries by electronic transmission. This is routine anti-theft record-keeping, not a mark against you, but it means the transaction is documented from the start.
Third, R.S. 37:1864.2 bars dealers from purchasing gold, silver, or other precious metals and jewelry from anyone under the age of eighteen. None of these rules set the price of your metal; they set the paperwork and the payment method. Know them so a lawful process is not mistaken for a runaround.
Why the estate market runs deep on Royal Street
New Orleans was the largest city in the South into the 1950s and kept a regional customer base for high-end antiques. That history shows in the trade. M.S. Rau has sold on Royal Street since 1912 and is described as the largest antique gallery in North America by sales, occupying 31,000 square feet. Keil's Antiques has been family owned since 1899, and The French Antique Shop moved to Royal in 1947. James H. Cohen and Sons, tracing its history to 1898, deals antique coins and paper currency alongside historic arms.
Estate jewelry and silver services are a named category of that stock, sold up and down Royal and Chartres in the French Quarter and along Magazine from the Lower Garden District to Uptown. The practical upshot for a seller: a period piece with real design or maker value may be worth more intact to an antique buyer than melted for metal. A refiner pays for gold content and nothing else. Get both reads before you decide, and know the day's gold price so you can separate the metal floor from any premium.
The "O" mintmark, struck a few blocks away
The New Orleans Mint operated as a U.S. branch mint from 1838 to 1861 and again from 1879 to 1909, producing over 427 million gold and silver coins across nearly every American denomination, with a total face value above $307 million. Coins struck there carry the "O" mintmark, and the building is a National Historic Landmark, the oldest surviving structure to have served as a U.S. Mint. If you are holding older U.S. gold or silver with an "O" mark, that coin may carry collector value beyond melt, another reason to have it looked at as a coin first. For a mint-town comparison, see our Charlotte page.
Sources
This page is informational. Figures and rules cited are accurate as of the review date above and can change.
Last reviewed August 9, 2026.