Work out what your gold is worth from its weight and karat, in any currency, and see what a buyer would actually pay after their margin.
Common weights and karats, to get a quick sense of scale.
Weigh the piece and read its hallmark — 750 means 18K, 585 means 14K.
Enter today's price in your own currency, per gram or per troy ounce.
Gold moves every day, so there is no default price here — look up today's rate (Kitco, GoldPrice, or your local buyer) and enter it in the currency you chose.
This is the value of the gold content only. It ignores gemstones, brand, craftsmanship and any collector premium, all of which can be worth far more than the metal in a finished piece. Buyer margins vary widely between shops. An estimate, not an offer or a valuation.
You might also find these calculators useful
The value of gold comes down to three numbers: how much the piece weighs, how pure it is, and what gold is trading at today. This calculator combines them in any currency, per gram or per troy ounce, and shows both the melt value of the metal and what a buyer would realistically offer once their margin is taken out. Enter the weight from a kitchen or jeweller's scale, pick the karat from the hallmark, and add today's price.
Karat measures how much of an alloy is gold, out of 24 parts. 18K is 18 parts gold to 6 parts other metal, which is 75% pure — the number stamped as 750 on European jewellery. 14K is 58.3% (585), 10K is 41.7% (417), 9K is 37.5% (375), and 24K is effectively pure at 99.9%. Only the gold fraction has melt value, so a 10 g chain in 18K contains 7.5 g of gold and is worth 75% of what the same weight in pure gold would fetch.
Melt value of a gold item
Before taking a box of old pieces to a buyer, weigh each one and price it. Broken chains and single earrings are worth their gold regardless of condition.
Work out the melt value, compare it with what you were offered, and you know the exact margin the shop is taking.
Different karats cannot simply be added together by weight. Price each karat separately at its own purity and total the results.
For a coin or bar of known weight and fineness, this gives the current metal value — the floor under any collector premium.
Gold is quoted in dollars per troy ounce, but almost nobody sells jewellery that way. Enter the price in euros, pesos or pounds, per gram if that is how you looked it up, and every figure follows.
A buyer opens with an offer, not an explanation. Knowing the melt value and the usual margin turns a take-it-or-leave-it into a negotiation.
Two shops quoting different karats or different units are hard to compare. Reduce both to price per gram of pure gold and the better offer is obvious.
The reference table prices all six common karats at today's rate, so a mixed lot of 9K, 14K and 18K can be valued piece by piece.
Take the current price of pure gold per gram and multiply by 0.75, since 18K is 75% gold. If pure gold is at 85 per gram, one gram of 18K contains 0.75 g of gold and is worth about 63.75 in metal. A buyer would then offer that figure less their margin.
Yes. Choose your currency and enter the price you looked up — per gram or per troy ounce. No exchange rate is applied anywhere: the calculation works in whatever currency you supply, so the answer comes back in the same one.
Melt value is what the gold content alone is worth at today’s price. A buyer pays less because they have to refine the metal, absorb the price risk until they do, and make a profit. Ten to thirty per cent below melt is typical for scrap; bullion coins trade much closer to spot.
No, and confusing them overstates a valuation by about 10%. A troy ounce is 31.1035 g and is the standard for precious metals. The ordinary (avoirdupois) ounce used for food is 28.3495 g. Gold prices are always quoted per troy ounce.
Look for a hallmark stamped somewhere discreet — inside a ring band, on a clasp, on the back of a pendant. It will read either in karats (18K, 14K) or in parts per thousand (750, 585). If there is no mark, a buyer can test it with acid or an XRF scanner, usually free.
Yes, though it is worth less per gram than you might expect: 9K is only 37.5% gold, so a 10 g piece contains under 4 g of metal. It is still real gold and buyers will take it — just weigh it first so the offer can be checked.
No. This values the gold content only. A ring with a significant diamond, a piece by a recognised maker, or an antique with provenance can be worth many times its melt value, and selling it for scrap would destroy that. Get those appraised before weighing them.
Because the margin is theirs to set, and it is rarely displayed. The metal price is the same for everyone; the spread is not. Knowing the melt value lets you compare offers as percentages rather than as numbers, which is the only fair comparison.
Mostly real interest rates, the strength of the dollar, central-bank buying and demand for a safe haven during uncertainty. Day to day the moves are small, but over a year the price can shift enough to change a valuation materially — which is why this calculator asks for today’s number rather than shipping one.
Usually yes. Dental alloys run roughly 10K to 22K and often contain palladium or platinum too, which have value of their own. Weigh it, assume a mid karat if it is unmarked, and treat the result as a lower bound.