How to Calculate Scrap Gold Value
A repeatable process for pricing a mixed bag of broken jewelry, from sorting by karat to walking in with a documented number.
Updated July 29, 2026
Step 1: sort by karat, not by item type
This is the step that pays for itself. If you hand over a bag containing 10K, 14K and 18K pieces mixed together, a buyer has two honest options: test every piece individually, or price the whole lot at or near the lowest purity present. Under time pressure, plenty choose the second. Read the hallmark on each piece and build physical piles: 999/24K, 916/22K, 875/21K, 750/18K, 585/14K, 417/10K, 375/9K. Ring bands carry the stamp on the inner shank. Chains carry it on the clasp or on a small tag soldered next to the clasp. Pendants and earrings carry it on the back or on the post. Put anything unmarked, anything marked GP/GF/HGE/RGP, and anything you are unsure about into a separate "test" pile. Do not mix unknowns into a marked pile hoping they get carried along - it gives the buyer a legitimate reason to discount the whole group.
Step 2: weigh properly
A jewelry scale with 0.01 gram resolution costs about the same as a takeaway meal and is the single best purchase you can make before selling gold. A 0.1 gram scale is acceptable for lots over 20 grams; a kitchen scale reading in 1 gram steps is not usable, because on a 4 gram ring the rounding alone can be 12% of the value. Calibrate with the supplied weight before you start, weigh on a hard level surface away from drafts, and weigh each karat pile separately. Write every figure down - pile, karat, grams - either on paper or in the multi-item mode of the calculator so you have a record you can hand over or check against. Be aware of what a scale cannot tell you. It reads gross weight, which includes stones and non-gold components. It cannot verify purity, and it cannot detect a plated or filled piece. Those are separate checks.
Step 3: subtract what is not gold
Buyers pay for recoverable metal. Everything else on the piece is weight you should remove from your own estimate before you set expectations, or you will feel cheated by a fair offer. Common deductions: gemstones and their settings, glass and cubic zirconia, enamel and resin inlays, pearls, steel spring bars and watch pins, quartz movements, magnetic clasps, base-metal earring backs, and the steel core inside some heavy "gold" bangles. A large centre stone plus setting can easily be 0.5 grams. Watch cases are often the only gold part of a watch. Two categories deserve their own note. Hollow chains - rope, herringbone, some Figaro - contain far less metal than their bulk suggests, and their advertised gram weight is the whole story rather than a starting point. And dental gold varies enormously, from 10K to 22K equivalents mixed with palladium and platinum, so a dealer will normally assay it rather than price it from a stamp. If you cannot separate a stone yourself, do not force it. Estimate the stone weight conservatively, note it, and let the buyer weigh it their way - just make sure you know roughly what is being deducted and why.
Step 4: price each pile at melt
Run each karat pile through the melt formula: grams ÷ 31.1035 × karat decimal × spot price per troy ounce. Then add the piles together for a lot total. A concrete example. Suppose after sorting you have 12.6 g of 14K, 7.1 g of 18K and 22.4 g of 10K, with spot at $4,060. The 14K pile is 12.6 ÷ 31.1035 × 0.5833 × 4060 = $959. The 18K pile is 7.1 ÷ 31.1035 × 0.750 × 4060 = $695. The 10K pile is 22.4 ÷ 31.1035 × 0.4167 × 4060 = $1,220. Lot melt value: $2,874. Notice that the 10K pile is worth more than the 18K pile despite being far lower purity - there is simply three times more of it. This is why sorting matters and why gross weight alone tells you nothing.
Step 5: apply a realistic payout expectation
Melt value is the ceiling. Every buyer between you and the refinery takes a cut for assay, refining loss, shipping, insurance, payment processing, inventory risk and margin. These are real costs, not a scam - but the size of the cut varies enormously by business model. Refiners and specialist mail-in buyers taking large lots are usually at the top of the range, commonly around 80-95% of melt for clean sorted material. Independent jewelers and coin shops with a refining relationship typically land somewhere around 70-90%. Cash-for-gold storefronts and mall kiosks are usually lower. Pawn shops are lowest, frequently in the 40-60% range, because they are pricing for a resale or a defaulted loan rather than a refinery run. Treat those bands as orientation, not quotes - they move with the size of your lot, your local market, and how much competition there is nearby. On the $2,874 lot above, 85% is $2,443 and 50% is $1,437. If an offer comes in below about 60% of melt for clean, sorted, hallmarked gold, get a second quote before you accept. Advertised percentages are worth almost nothing on their own. "We pay up to 95%" is a ceiling on the best possible material, and "95% of the gold value" can quietly mean 95% of some internal base price rather than 95% of spot melt. Ask for the offer in currency for your specific weight, and ask what spot price and what purity the offer is based on.
Step 6: document the lot before you leave the house
Take a photo of each sorted pile on the scale with the reading visible. Write down the spot price and the time you priced at. Save or export your item list so you have the karat and weight of every piece. This does three things. It gives you something to compare quotes against without re-doing arithmetic at the counter. It protects you if pieces get separated or mixed during testing. And it makes you visibly prepared, which changes how the conversation goes. Then get at least two or three quotes, and get them for the same sorted lot rather than letting each buyer re-sort it their own way. If a buyer will not test in front of you, will not explain their percentage, or pressures you to decide immediately, that is information about the buyer.
When not to sell as scrap
Melting is permanent, and some pieces are worth much more intact. Signed designer work, antique and period jewelry with intact hallmarks, anything with a maker mark you recognise, gold coins with numismatic premiums, and watches - particularly the case-and-movement combination - can be worth several times melt on the secondhand or collector market. Coins in particular are worth checking before they go in the scrap pile. A common bullion coin trades at a small premium over melt, but pre-1933 US gold, sovereigns in good grade, and low-mintage issues can carry a large one. There is no way to recover that once the coin is gone. The test is simple: if a piece has a name, a date, a hallmark set you can look up, or an intact matching pair, spend an hour getting a jewelry appraisal before you price it as metal.
Key points
Sort by karat before weighing - a mixed pile gets averaged down to its lowest purity. Weigh each karat group separately on a 0.01 g scale and record the numbers. Deduct stones, clasps and non-gold parts from gross weight before pricing. Expect 70-90% of melt from a specialist buyer, 40-60% from a pawn shop.