Gold Value Calculator
Melt value from weight, purity and spot.
Calculate the melt value of gold from its weight, karat and the current spot price, and what a scrap buyer paying a percentage would offer.
Today's price per troy ounce. Any bullion site publishes it — it moves daily, so it is an input rather than a constant.
Melt value
$578.71
a buyer at 85% would offer $491.91
Melt value is the metal only. Craftsmanship, brand, stones and age can be worth multiples of it, so anything with those should be valued as a piece before it is weighed as scrap.
How the Gold Value Calculator works
Melt value is the gold in a piece, valued at spot: weight times purity gives the pure gold content, and that converted to troy ounces and multiplied by the spot price gives the number. What a buyer offers is a different figure — typically a percentage of melt — and the gap between the two is the thing worth knowing before you walk into a shop.
Also known as: scrap gold calculator · gold melt value calculator · gold weight value calculator
How melt value is derived
Weight times fineness gives the pure gold content. That divided by 31.1034768 gives troy ounces, and multiplied by the spot price gives melt value. Every step is exact; the only uncertain input is spot itself.
Spot is deliberately not built in. Gold has moved by double-digit percentages within single months, and a calculator carrying a hard-coded price would be quietly wrong for everyone using it. Any bullion site publishes the live figure.
What a buyer offers is a separate number entirely. Scrap buyers pay a percentage of melt — commonly 70 to 90% depending on quantity and who they are — to cover assaying, refining loss and their own margin.
A worked example
Ten grams of 18k at $2,400 an ounce. Eighteen karat is 750 fine, so the piece holds 7.5 grams of pure gold. That is 0.2411 troy ounces, which at $2,400 is $578.72 of melt.
A high street buyer paying 85% offers $491.91; one paying 70% offers $405.10. The $87 spread between those two is the reason it is worth knowing melt before walking in, and worth getting more than one offer.
Where the answer misleads
Melt value is the floor, not the value. Craftsmanship, brand, stones, age and provenance can all be worth multiples of the metal, and once a piece is melted none of that is recoverable. Anything signed, antique, or set with stones of consequence should be valued as a piece first.
Stones also complicate the weight. A gross weight including stones overstates the gold content, sometimes considerably, and buyers weigh net of stones. If you are estimating from a gross weight, expect the real figure to be lower.
Finally, the fineness stamped on a piece is a claim rather than a measurement. Most marks are honest, but unmarked or unusually marked items should be tested before any figure is relied on.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate the value of my gold?
Multiply the weight by the fineness to get pure gold content, divide by 31.1035 for troy ounces, and multiply by the spot price. Ten grams of 18k is 7.5 g of pure gold, which is 0.241 troy ounces.
Why is spot price not a fixed number here?
Because it changes every day and often several percent in a week. A calculator with a price baked in would be wrong by the afternoon, so you enter the current figure — any bullion site publishes it.
What percentage of melt will a buyer pay?
Commonly 70 to 90% for scrap, depending on the buyer and the quantity. Refiners pay more than high street shops, and the spread covers assaying, refining loss and their margin. Knowing melt tells you whether an offer is reasonable.
Is my jewellery worth more than its melt value?
Often, and this calculator deliberately does not try to say so. Craftsmanship, brand, stones and antiquity can all be worth multiples of the metal, and anything with those should be valued as a piece before it is weighed as scrap.