Scrap Gold Calculator

How the Scrap Gold Calculator Works

This calculator uses the live COMEX gold spot price — updated every 60 seconds — to compute the pure gold content of your item based on weight and karat. The result is the melt value: what the gold content alone is worth at today's market price, before any dealer margin, refining fee, or premium. It is the number no buyer should pay significantly less than, and the baseline for every scrap gold negotiation.

Formula: Melt Value = Weight (grams) × (Karat ÷ 24) ÷ 31.1035 × Spot Price ($/troy oz). Example: 10 grams of 14K gold at $3,200/oz = 10 × 0.5833 ÷ 31.1035 × $3,200 = $600.29.

The Pennyweight Trap: The Most Common Scrap Gold Deception

Some cash-for-gold buyers quote prices in pennyweight (DWT) rather than grams. One pennyweight = 1.5552 grams — it is a legitimate troy weight unit (there are 20 pennyweights per troy ounce), but quoting in DWT when buyers expect grams creates deliberate confusion.

Example: A buyer offers "$50 per pennyweight" for your 14K gold. That sounds substantial — but $50 ÷ 1.5552 = $32.15 per gram. At $3,200/oz spot, 14K gold melt value is ~$60.03/gram. That "generous" offer is only 53.6% of melt. The same math applied to 10K: $50/DWT = $32.15/gram vs. ~$41.70/gram melt value = 77% of melt.

The fix is simple: always convert any offer to dollars per gram and divide by the melt value per gram shown in the calculator above. Any legitimate buyer will readily make this conversion. The Federal Trade Commission has received consumer complaints documenting gram/pennyweight confusion at cash-for-gold retailers.

What "14KP" Means vs. "14K" — The FTC Plumb Gold Rule

Under FTC 16 CFR Part 23, a piece stamped "14K" is permitted a ±0.5 karat tolerance — it could legally contain as little as 13.5K (56.25% gold) or as much as 14.5K. A piece stamped "14KP" (P = plumb) must contain exactly 14K purity — the "P" eliminates any downward tolerance.

For scrap sellers: the difference between 13.5K and 14K is approximately 0.0208 grams of pure gold per gram of metal. At $3,200/oz spot, that's ~$2.14 per gram of metal — roughly $21 on a 10-gram piece. On estate lots with multiple pieces, this adds up. If you want certainty, get XRF testing (see below).

Understanding Gold Karat Purity and Hallmarks

Karat measures the proportion of pure gold in an alloy — 24 parts = pure gold. The remaining parts are base metals (copper, silver, zinc, nickel, or palladium) that provide hardness and color. Most US jewelry scrap is 10K or 14K; European and Middle Eastern scrap is predominantly 18K and 22K. Look for the stamp on the inner band of rings, on clasps of chains and bracelets, and on the bail or reverse of pendants.

Dental Gold: Why General Buyers Systematically Underpay

Dental gold is not the same as jewelry gold, and selling it to a general cash-for-gold buyer often means leaving significant money behind. The American Dental Association classifies dental casting alloys by strength and composition:

Type III dental gold (high-strength, used for full crowns and inlays): typically 75–78% gold (~18–19K equivalent), plus palladium (2–5%), platinum (0–3%), silver, and copper. Type IV dental gold (extra-hard, used for partial dentures and bridges): typically 60–70% gold (~14–17K equivalent), with higher palladium content (5–12%).

A specialized dental gold refiner recovers all precious metals in the alloy — gold, palladium, and platinum — and prices dental lots accordingly. At a palladium spot price of $1,000–$1,500/oz, the palladium in a Type IV dental crown can represent 20–30% of that crown's total precious metal value. A general buyer assaying only for gold misses this entirely. Dental gold refiners consistently pay 85–95% of total precious metal value; general buyers pay 60–75% of gold-only value and ignore the rest.

Americans discard an estimated $100 million or more in dental gold annually through cremations — recovered at funeral homes and processed through dental refiners. A single dental bridge can contain 3–8 grams of precious metal alloy. Always use a dental-specialized refiner for dental material.

Gold-Filled vs. Gold-Plated: Does It Have Scrap Value?

Gold-plated (GP): a microscopic electroplated layer (0.5–2.5 microns thick) over base metal. A typical gold-plated necklace contains $0.05–$0.25 of actual gold. Not worth selling as scrap.

Gold-filled (GF): FTC regulations (16 CFR Part 23) require gold-filled items to contain a minimum of 1/20 gold by weight (5%), mechanically bonded as a layer. A piece stamped "1/20 12K GF" contains 1/20 of its total weight as 12K gold. Worked example: 5-gram bracelet stamped "1/20 12K GF" = 0.25g of 12K gold = 0.25 × 0.500 = 0.125g pure gold ≈ $12.86 at $3,200/oz spot. Most refiners require a minimum lot of 20–50 grams of GF material before accepting it.

The shortcut: if a piece is stamped with a karat number alone (10K, 14K, 18K) with no GF, GP, or RGP suffix, it is solid gold throughout and worth calculating at full melt value.

The Acid Test: 2,600 Years of Gold Authentication

The acid test for gold is a metallurgical assay dating to approximately 600 BC in Lydia (present-day western Turkey) — the same civilization credited with inventing coinage. Goldsmiths scratched metal samples across a black basalt touchstone (Lydian stone), leaving a streak, then applied nitric acid. Pure gold is resistant to nitric acid; base metals and lower-karat alloys dissolve at rates proportional to their non-gold fraction — the dissolution pattern and color reveal approximate purity. Aqua regia (a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids) dissolves even high-karat gold, used for comparison testing.

The English idiom "acid test" — meaning a definitive, unambiguous test — derives directly from this metallurgical practice. Modern acid test kits ($10–$25) provide labeled acid solutions for 10K, 14K, 18K, and 22K testing and are accurate to approximately ±1 karat. Limitations: acid testing is destructive to the test area (a small scratch), requires practice to read results accurately, and cannot identify the specific non-gold alloy composition. XRF testing is more accurate for precise karat determination.

XRF Testing: Non-Destructive, Exact, Often Free

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) testing is the professional standard for gold verification. A handheld XRF analyzer (the Thermo Fisher Scientific Niton XL2/XL3 series is the industry standard) fires a focused X-ray beam at the metal surface. The atoms emit characteristic secondary X-rays that the detector reads as exact elemental percentages — reporting gold, silver, copper, palladium, zinc, nickel content in 5–30 seconds, non-destructively.

Practical access: many coin and bullion dealers will XRF test your items for free while considering a purchase. Some jewelers charge $10–25 per piece. For any estate lot worth over $500 in estimated melt value, XRF testing before negotiating eliminates karat disputes and can add hundreds of dollars to your negotiating position. XRF cannot read through gold plating to the base metal below on a standard surface scan — but a plated layer produces an anomalous reading that an experienced operator recognizes immediately.

Why Refiners Pay More Than Pawnshops

The payout difference (50–70% at pawnshops vs. 93–97% at refiners) reflects real cost structures, not varying honesty. A pawnshop may hold your gold for weeks, needs retail overhead, and often resells pieces rather than refining — all of which require margin. An online refiner processes scrap immediately, charges a transparent assay fee ($10–50 per lot) plus a refining charge (0.5–2% of gold value), and sells refined metal directly to bullion markets — eliminating the entire resale middleman chain.

The breakeven math: for a lot with $300 in melt value, a $40 assay fee represents 13% overhead before the refining charge — potentially wiping out the refiner's advantage. For a lot with $3,000 in melt value, that same $40 assay fee is 1.3% overhead, and the refiner's higher payout percentage easily wins. Rule of thumb: for lots under ~$500 melt value, local buyers are often more practical. For lots over $1,000 melt value, a specialized online refiner almost always pays more in total dollars.

Before You Sell: Check for Above-Melt Value

Melt value is the floor, not the ceiling. Several categories of gold items regularly sell well above scrap melt value and should be researched before going to a refiner:

Signed designer pieces (Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, David Yurman, Bulgari) — often sell at 150–400%+ of melt at estate auction or on resale platforms. Antique and estate jewelry (Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Victorian) — craftsmanship premiums often exceed melt value for fine pieces. Luxury watches with gold cases (Rolex, Patek Philippe) — resale value vastly exceeds gold melt value; never scrap a luxury watch. Pre-1933 US gold coins (Liberty Head, Saint-Gaudens) — carry numismatic premiums of 10–200%+ over melt depending on date and condition.

When in doubt, photograph the item and research recently sold comparables on eBay, 1stDibs, or Chrono24 before accepting any scrap offer.