How much is that gold jewelry worth?

Have some old gold jewelry and need some cash? Here’s how to find out what it’s worth before you sell it …

Many stores and websites will pay you for your jewelry based (mainly) on its precious metal content. For those that advertise online, they offer you a postage-paid envelope, you mail in your valuables, and a few days later you get a check and ride off into the sunset.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. Some people will be, shall we say, a bit disappointed with the size of that check.

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Gold jewelry is usually valued as scrap

This stands to reason. Cash for gold places will value your jewelry at scrap content. Regardless of the sentimental value to you, they don’t place any value on that. (Nothing against your great aunt Gertrude; I’m sure she was a fine lady and that necklace is indeed beautiful!)

Additionally, they’re not going to — well, can’t — give people top dollar for their stuff because they have to (a) pay for shipping, (b) pay people to value your stuff, (c) pay to cut the check and mail it, and (d) put food on the table. You pay for the convenience of selling your jewelry by throwing it in an envelope.

How much is my gold jewelry worth?

So, how do you figure out what your gold jewelry is worth?

1. Look for the stamp to see what the purity is

Below is what you could find.

If you find three numbers, put a decimal point between the middle and last digit, and you have the purity of the precious metal in percent. So a gold chain stamped with “375” would be 37.5% precious metal or 9-karat gold. One stamped with “585” is 58.5% or 14-karat gold. “916” is 22k gold, the standard for many gold coins. “Pure” gold may be designated “990” or “999” if it’s gone through some more refining.

If you find 10k, 14k … or 18ct, 24ct … or 14KT, 16KT, this is the purity in karats. Pure gold (99% or higher) is “24 karat.” So 10-karat gold is 10/24, or 41.7% gold. 14-karat gold is 14/24, or 58.5% gold. This marking is also called “solid gold” but it does not necessarily mean pure gold — just that it has the same alloy throughout.

If you find 1/20 14k, or 14kgf, then this is “gold filled” which, unfortunately, does not mean “filled with gold.” It means “gold, filled with something else.” The 1/20 means that the weight of the gold is at least 1/20th, or 5%, of the total weight. The letters “gf” in the second example indicate that the piece is gold-filled, but there is no gold weight requirement.

If you see GE or HGE, then the gold is electroplated. GE Stands for “gold electroplate” (at least 7 millionths of an inch) and HGE “heavy gold electroplate” (at least 100 millionths of an inch).

Can’t read the stamp? A jeweler’s loupe may help.

2. Weigh the gold jewelry

Second, you weigh the gold jewelry.

If it’s nothing but metal, then the rest is easy. If there are gems, then it’s a little more complicated but you can estimate down a bit with the gold content.

Let’s take an example. Say you have a 14k gold chain that weighs 30 grams. The amount of gold you have in that chain is 14/24 (14 karat) times 30 grams, or 17.5 grams. A 30-gram chain marked “1/20 14K” will have at least 5% of 30 grams, or 1.5 grams, of gold.

If you have a number of pieces, then weigh each kind separately. That is, weigh your 14-karat pieces together, your gold-filled pieces together, etc., and determine the amount of gold in each kind separately.

To get an accurate weight you’ll want a jeweler’s scale.

3. Look up the price of gold to calculate the melt value

Let’s say that it closed at $60/gram. (The current value is updated daily in the box below, courtesy of DailyMetalPrice.com.)

Let’s say you added up all of the gold in Step 2, and you got 10 grams of gold. Assuming that gold is going for $60/gram, then you’d have 60 x 10 = $600 in melt value for your gold.

4. Or just use this calculator!

These are calculations you can do to see how much someone is lowballing you when they give you a price for your jewelry. It’s also handy to see what kind of markup people are asking for their jewelry.