Gold Calculator

Melt value

Use this gold calculator to estimate the melt value of jewelry, coins, scrap, bullion or dental gold from the numbers you control: weight, unit, purity and spot price per troy ounce. It also works as a manual precious-metal calculator for silver, platinum and palladium when you enter the correct spot price yourself. No market feed is fetched, so you can model a quote, a dealer offer or a saved price snapshot.

How to calculate precious-metal value

  1. 1

    Choose the metal and spot price

    Gold is selected by default. Enter the current or quoted spot price per troy ounce for the metal you want to value.

  2. 2

    Enter the weight and unit

    Use grams, kilograms, avoirdupois ounces, troy ounces or pennyweight. The calculator converts everything to troy ounces before pricing.

  3. 3

    Set the purity

    For gold jewelry, use karat such as 10K, 14K, 18K or 22K. For bullion or other metals, switch to purity percent.

  4. 4

    Review melt value and net value

    The result shows pure metal weight, gross conversion, melt value, price per gram and the net amount after an optional dealer fee.

Formula used by the calculator

Precious metals are normally priced per troy ounce, not per regular grocery-store ounce. The calculator first converts the gross weight to grams, then to troy ounces:

gross troy oz = gross grams / 31.1034768

For karat gold, purity is karat / 24. For a percent entry, purity is simply percent / 100. The core melt-value formula is:

melt value = gross troy oz * purity fraction * spot price per troy oz

If you enter a dealer fee, the net estimate is:

net value = melt value * (1 - dealer fee percent / 100)

Worked example

Suppose you have 10 grams of 14K gold and use a manual spot price of $2,300 per troy ounce.

Step Calculation Result
Convert weight 10 g / 31.1034768 0.32151 troy oz gross
Convert purity 14 / 24 58.33% pure
Pure gold weight 0.32151 * 58.33% 0.18755 troy oz pure
Melt value 0.18755 * $2,300 $431.36
Net after 5% fee $431.36 * 95% $409.79

Common gold purity references

Marking Approximate purity Typical use
10K 41.67% Durable jewelry
14K 58.33% Common US jewelry
18K 75.00% Fine jewelry
22K 91.67% High-purity jewelry and coins
24K / .999 99.9%+ Bullion bars and investment coins

What this estimate does and does not include

The result is a melt-value estimate, not a guaranteed buy price. Real offers can be lower because refiners, pawn shops and jewelry buyers may charge assay, refining, shipping, hedging or margin costs. Collectible coins and designer jewelry can also be worth more than melt value because of rarity, condition, brand, workmanship or resale demand.

Use the same unit convention throughout your comparison. A troy ounce is about 31.1035 grams, while an avoirdupois ounce is about 28.3495 grams. Mixing those two ounce types is one of the easiest ways to overstate or understate a precious-metal value.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. It is a manual calculator. Enter the spot price per troy ounce you want to use, such as a quote from a dealer, market site or saved price snapshot.

Precious metals are priced in troy ounces. If your scale shows regular ounces, choose the avoirdupois ounce option and the calculator will convert it correctly.

The mathematical value for 14K is 14 divided by 24, or about 58.33 percent. Some jewelry is marked or rounded as 58.5 percent, so the percent mode lets you enter the exact figure you prefer.

No. Nothing is uploaded for valuation. The inputs are processed only to display the estimate in your current browser session.

A buyer may subtract refining costs, assay risk, payment costs, shipping, hedging risk and profit margin. Use the dealer fee field to model that discount.

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