What a Gram of Gold Is Worth When You Sell It

The number you see quoted for gold is the price of one troy ounce of pure gold. Almost nothing anyone brings us to sell is pure gold, and nothing is weighed in troy ounces at the counter. The gap between that headline and the offer you receive is mostly arithmetic, and it is worth being able to do yourself.

The three conversions

A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. Not 28.35, which is the ordinary ounce. Gold has always been weighed in troy, and mixing the two overstates your gold by about ten percent.

Karat is purity, out of 24. 24k is pure. 18k is 75 percent gold. 14k is 58.3 percent. 10k is 41.7 percent. The rest is alloy, which for selling purposes is worth nothing.

Spot moves constantly. It is set in the market through the day, and the LBMA publishes a benchmark twice daily in dollars per fine troy ounce. Any figure in an article, including this one, is a snapshot.

Worked, with a real number

Gold was $4,347.70 per troy ounce on 12 September 2026 (Kitco). Take a 14k chain weighing 20 grams.

• Pure gold content: 20 g x 0.583 = 11.66 g
• Per gram of pure gold: $4,347.70 / 31.1035 = $139.78
• Gold value: 11.66 x $139.78 = $1,629.85

So the metal in that chain is worth about sixteen hundred dollars at that moment. If you run this for your own piece, the two numbers you need are its weight in grams and its karat, and a kitchen scale will get you close enough to know whether an offer is in the right neighbourhood.

Why the offer is less than that

Because that figure is the value of the refined metal, and you are not selling refined metal.

Between your chain and a bar of pure gold sit refining costs, assay, freight, insurance, and the fact that a buyer carries the price risk between buying from you and settling. Everyone in the chain takes a margin, and the buyer who pays you is taking the first one.

What varies is how much. A refiner buying in volume works on a thinner margin than a shop buying a single chain over the counter. A buyer who intends to melt has no reason to pay for anything except metal.

There is no single correct percentage, and any article that gives you one is guessing. What you can do is calculate the metal value, as above, and ask what percentage of it is being offered. A buyer who will not answer that question plainly is telling you something.

When is your gold worth more than its gold?

This is the part the arithmetic misses, and it is where people lose the most money.

If the piece is signed, from a recognised maker, it is frequently worth more intact than melted, sometimes far more. If it carries stones of any size, the stones are separate value that a melt price ignores entirely. If it is antique, the workmanship may be expensive to reproduce today. If it is a watch, the metal is usually the least interesting thing about it.

A buyer who only melts will quote you metal for all of these, and the quote will be honest as far as it goes. It just answers a narrower question than the one you should be asking.

That is why it is worth taking anything with a name on it, a stone in it, or some age to it, to someone who buys to resell rather than to refine.

What about testing and weighing?

Two things you are entitled to, and should expect.

Weighing in front of you. There is no reason for a scale to be out of sight.

A purity test you can see. Karat marks are a claim, not a guarantee, and plated pieces are marked too. An acid test or an electronic tester settles it in moments, and a buyer should be willing to show you the result rather than announce it.

If a piece is unmarked, it gets tested rather than assumed. That usually works in your favour, because unmarked does not mean low karat.

Before you sell anything

Do not polish it, do not repair it, and do not break up a set. A repair rarely returns what it costs when a piece is valued as gold, and polishing removes a little of the thing you are selling.

Know the number before you decide

We weigh and test in front of you, we will show you the arithmetic above with your piece's actual weight and karat, and the verbal appraisal is free with no obligation to sell once you know the number. We are a licensed jewelry buyer, No. 000000356, and we pay same day by cash or wire.

If what you have is scrap, selling gold explains how we price it. If it has a name on it or stones in it, bring it anyway and let us tell you before anyone melts it.