How this gold calculator works
That drawer of tangled chains, single earrings, and a class ring nobody wears is money sitting still, and it is usually worth more than you expect and less than the mail-in ads promise. Before you walk into a shop or seal an envelope, you deserve two numbers: what the gold in your hand is worth melted down, and what a buyer will actually hand you for it. Those are not the same number, and the gap between them is where people get taken.
Weigh your pieces (a kitchen or pocket scale reading grams is perfect), read the karat stamp inside the ring band or on the clasp, and enter both above. The calculator converts your weight to troy ounces, applies the karat's purity fraction, and multiplies by the spot price of gold. Then it does the part most gold calculators skip: it shows the realistic offers, not just the ceiling.
The formula
Weight is your metal in grams; other units are converted first using exact definitions (1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 g, 1 pennyweight = exactly a twentieth of a troy ounce, 1 regular ounce = 28.349523125 g). Karat over 24 is the purity fraction, and the spot price is the market price of pure gold per troy ounce, quoted continuously wherever gold trades.
Karat purity: the honest fractions
A karat is simply a twenty-fourth. This calculator uses the true fraction, so 14k is 14/24 = 58.33%, not the 58.5% you sometimes see printed.
| Stamp | Fraction | Purity |
|---|---|---|
| 24k (999) | 24/24 | 100% |
| 22k (916) | 22/24 | 91.67% |
| 18k (750) | 18/24 | 75% |
| 14k (583 or 585) | 14/24 | 58.33% |
| 10k (417) | 10/24 | 41.67% |
The 58.5% figure has a story. Older US law tolerated stamps that slightly overstated purity, so "plumb gold" marks (14KP in the US, the 585 fineness mark in Europe) arose as a promise that the piece is at least the stated purity, and many modern 14k alloys really are made to 58.5%. The difference is small but real: on 25 grams it is about five dollars. If your piece is stamped 585, choose the custom purity option and enter 58.5.
Worked example
25 grams of 14k gold, with gold around $4,050 per troy ounce (the level as of August 2026):
25 ÷ 31.1034768 = 0.8038 troy ounces of metal. At 14/24 = 58.33% purity, that metal holds 0.4689 troy ounces of pure gold, which at $4,050 per troy ounce is a melt value of $1,898.90, about $75.96 per gram.
And the honest part: a pawn shop typically offers $759.56 to $1,139.34 for it, a local gold buyer $1,329.23 to $1,519.12, and the best online refiners $1,614.07 to $1,803.96.
The troy trap
Gold trades in troy ounces, and a troy ounce is not the ounce your kitchen scale reports. A troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams; the regular avoirdupois ounce is 28.349523125 grams, about 10 percent lighter. Mix them up and every number that follows is wrong by that same 10 percent, in whichever direction costs you. There is also the pennyweight (dwt), the jewelry trade's favorite unit, which is exactly a twentieth of a troy ounce; some buyers like quoting per pennyweight precisely because it is a number you cannot compare to anything without doing math at the counter.
The clean escape from all of it: weigh in grams. Every scale on earth agrees on what a gram is, the spot conversion is one exact division, and no unit sleight of hand survives it.
Why nobody pays full melt, and who pays closest
Melt value assumes free refining, instant settlement, and zero risk. A buyer enjoys none of those: they pay a refiner to assay and melt the metal, they carry the price risk between handing you cash and getting paid themselves, and they need a margin to keep the lights on. So every legitimate offer is a percentage of melt, and the percentages cluster by buyer type: pawn shops around 40 to 60 percent (you are paying for speed and walking-distance convenience), dedicated local gold buyers 70 to 80, and the best online refiners 85 to 95 on decent lots. An offer below 40 percent of melt is not a fee structure, it is a lowball.
This is why the melt figure matters even though nobody pays it: it converts you from a price-taker into a negotiator. Weigh at home, compute melt, get two or three offers, and say your melt number out loud. The offers improve when the counter realizes you brought your own arithmetic.
What the stamp can lie about
A karat stamp is a claim, not a guarantee; counterfeit stamps on plated brass are common enough that every serious buyer tests regardless. The famous magnet test only works in one direction: gold is not magnetic, but neither are brass, copper, lead, or most well-made fakes, so a magnet can expose a piece that snaps to it and can never confirm the real thing. An acid test kit costs about the price of lunch and gives an actual answer for each karat level.
Also learn the markings that mean an item is not solid gold at all: GF (gold-filled), GP (gold-plated), HGE (heavy gold electroplate), and vermeil. A stamp like 1/20 12k GF means a 12k layer making up one twentieth of the item's weight, so the actual gold content is 1/20 × 12/24 = 2.5 percent: a 20 gram gold-filled bracelet holds about half a gram of gold, and recovering it costs more than the gold is worth. At melt, those pieces are worth nearly nothing, whatever the surface shine says.