Calculator
Scrap Gold Melt Value Calculator
Weight, karat, and today's spot price — see the melt value, and what a buyer will actually offer for it.
Your gold
Check the hallmark: "585" = 14K, "750" = 18K, "375" = 9K. Unmarked? Assume lower until tested.
Edit to override.
We fetch the current spot price for you — type your own quote over it if you'd rather. Either way, the math runs entirely in your browser.
Walk-in gold buyers commonly pay 60–80% of melt.
How gold melt value works
Every karat mark is a purity fraction: 24K is fine gold (.999), 18K is 75% gold, 14K is 58.3%, 10K is 41.7%. Melt value is simply weight × purity × spot price — a 10 g 14K ring at a $3,400/ozt spot holds 10 ÷ 31.103 × 0.583 × 3,400 ≈ $637 of pure gold. That number is the honest starting point for any negotiation, and knowing it before you walk in is most of the game.
The number nobody advertises is the spread: the gap between melt and the offer. It isn't a scam — refining costs money and buyers carry price risk — but it varies enormously by buyer type, which is why the same ring is worth $450 at a refiner and $250 at a pawn counter. The calculator shows both numbers so the offer doesn't surprise you.
Weighing it right
Gold trades in troy ounces (31.103 g) and pennyweight (dwt, 1.555 g) — buyers love quoting in dwt partly because sellers can't sanity-check it in their heads. A $20 pocket jewelry scale reading in grams settles everything: weigh at home, without stones or non-gold parts where possible, and convert in the calculator. If a buyer's scale disagrees meaningfully with yours, that tells you something too.
What counts (and what doesn't)
Solid karat gold counts: jewelry, dental gold (usually 16K-ish), coins, broken chains — condition is irrelevant, it's all melt. Gold-plated anything effectively doesn't; gold-filled ("GF") is a specialist refiner item at a steep discount. For the gold in electronics — CPU caps, connector pins, board fingers — see the Board & Component Value estimator instead: e-scrap trades on board grades, not karat math.
Scrap gold questions
What does "melt value" mean?
The value of the pure gold in your item at today's spot price — weight × purity × spot. It is the ceiling, not an offer: every buyer pays below melt, because refining, assaying, and their margin come out of the spread.
How much below melt will I actually get?
Typical ranges: mail-in refiners 90–98% of melt (best rates, usually for quantity), dedicated local gold buyers 60–80%, pawn shops 40–60%. That spread is why the calculator asks who you're selling to — and why getting two or three quotes on anything substantial pays better than any negotiating trick.
How do I know the karat?
Check the hallmark with a loupe: "585" or "14K" = 14 karat, "750" or "18K" = 18 karat, "375" or "9K" = 9 karat, "999" = fine gold. Marks are usually inside ring bands, on clasps, or on the underside. Unmarked or worn pieces need an acid or XRF test — buyers will test regardless, so a mark is a starting claim, not proof.
Why doesn't the calculator fetch the live gold price?
Same reason our yard calculators ask for your local prices: this tool runs entirely in your browser, stores nothing on a server, and never goes stale behind a broken price feed. Spot is one search away — type it in and it's saved for next time.
Does gold-plated or gold-filled count?
Gold-plated ("GP", "HGE", "gold tone") has effectively no recoverable value — the layer is micrometers thick. Gold-filled ("GF", e.g. "1/20 12K GF") has a real but thin layer: roughly 5% of the item's weight is karat gold, and only specialist refiners pay for it. This calculator is for solid karat gold.
Should I remove stones before weighing?
Yes, where practical — buyers deduct estimated stone weight anyway, and their estimate won't favor you. Weigh the metal alone if stones are removable; otherwise expect the offer to be adjusted down for them.
Silver in the same drawer?
Sterling flatware and pre-1965 US coins have their own calculator — including junk-silver coin counts.