What Is the Gold Melt Value?
The melt value of gold is the intrinsic worth of the pure gold metal contained in an item, based purely on its weight, purity, and the current market spot price. It ignores craftsmanship, brand, numismatic premium, and dealer margins — it is simply what the raw metal is worth if melted down. This makes it the baseline reference price when buying or selling scrap jewelry, coins, or bullion.
How to Use This Calculator
Enter the weight of your gold item and choose the unit (troy ounce, gram, or pennyweight). Select the karat purity stamped on the piece — common values are 24K (pure), 22K, 18K, 14K, and 10K. Finally, enter the current spot price per troy ounce, which you can find from any live gold-price source. The calculator converts your weight to troy ounces, scales it by the gold fineness, and multiplies by the spot price.
$$V = W_{ozt} \times \frac{\text{Karat}}{24} \times \text{Spot Price}$$ $$\text{where}\quad W_{ozt} = \text{Weight (ozt)}$$
The Formula Explained
First the weight is converted to troy ounces: 1 troy ounce equals 31.1034768 grams or 20 pennyweight. The fineness is the karat divided by 24, so 14K gold is \(14/24 = 0.58333\), or about 58.3% pure gold. Multiplying weight in troy ounces by fineness gives the pure gold content, and multiplying that by the spot price gives the melt value.
Worked Example
Suppose you have 10 grams of 14K gold and the spot price is $2,000 per troy ounce. Convert: $$10 / 31.1034768 = 0.321507 \text{ ozt}$$ Fineness: $$14/24 = 0.583333$$ Pure gold: $$0.321507 \times 0.583333 = 0.187546 \text{ ozt}$$ Melt value: $$0.187546 \times 2000 = \mathbf{375.09}$$ $375.09.
FAQ
Does this include making fees or markups? No — melt value reflects only the metal content. Dealers pay below melt and retailers charge above it.
Why use troy ounces? Precious metals are traded in troy ounces, which are heavier than standard (avoirdupois) ounces — 31.1 g versus 28.35 g.
Is 14K really 58.3%? By the karat definition, \(14/24 = 58.33\%\). Some references round to 58.5% for hallmarking standards; this tool uses the exact karat fraction.
