About the Gold & Silver Value Calculator
Find out what a gold or silver item is worth as metal. Enter its weight, choose the karat or fineness, and type in today’s price of pure gold or silver — from your bullion dealer or a spot-price website — to see how much pure metal it contains and its melt value.
It works in any currency and with grams, troy ounces, kilograms, pennyweight and tola. Add the percentage a buyer pays to estimate a dealer’s offer. Nothing here is fetched or stored: the price is the one you enter, so the answer is only as current as that price.
How does the Gold & Silver Value Calculator work?
The weight is converted to grams and multiplied by the purity to give the weight of pure metal. That is multiplied by the price per gram of pure metal — worked out from the price you enter per troy ounce, gram or kilogram.
Karat measures gold purity in 24ths: 18 karat is 18/24 = 75% gold. Silver is marked by fineness in thousandths: sterling .925 is 92.5% silver.
Gold & Silver Value Calculator formula
pure metal (g) = weight (g) × purity
melt value = pure metal (g) × price per gram
price per gram = price per troy oz ÷ 31.1035A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams — about 10% heavier than the ordinary (avoirdupois) ounce of 28.35 g used for food.
Example
A 10 g 18-karat gold chain contains 10 × 0.75 = 7.5 g of pure gold. If pure gold is 3,000 per troy ounce, that’s 3,000 ÷ 31.1035 = 96.45 per gram, so the melt value is 7.5 × 96.45 ≈ 723.
A sterling silver bracelet weighing 50 g holds 46.25 g of pure silver. At 35 per troy ounce (1.125 per gram), its melt value is about 52.
Common gold and silver purities
| Marking | Metal | Purity |
|---|---|---|
| 24k / 999 | Gold | 99.9% |
| 22k / 916 | Gold | 91.67% |
| 21k / 875 | Gold | 87.5% |
| 18k / 750 | Gold | 75% |
| 14k / 585 | Gold | 58.5% |
| 10k / 417 | Gold | 41.7% |
| 9k / 375 | Gold | 37.5% |
| 999 | Silver | 99.9% |
| 958 (Britannia) | Silver | 95.8% |
| 925 (sterling) | Silver | 92.5% |
| 900 (coin silver) | Silver | 90% |
Tips
- Weigh on accurate kitchen or jewellery scales, and remove stones, clasps or parts made of other metals if you can.
- Look for a hallmark such as 750, 585 or 925 stamped inside rings or on clasps — it tells you the purity.
- Get the price on the day: gold and silver prices move every trading day.
- Ask several buyers for quotes and compare them with the melt value to see what share they’re paying.