How to Work Out the Price for Scrap Gold

The term scrap gold usually refers to old broken jewelry or gold removed from computers and other electronic appliances. This type of gold will vary in terms of pure gold content. For example old jewelry can be 10K, 14k, 18k, 22k, each level of karat indicates the amount of pure gold in the jewelry item. This article explains how you can calculate the accurate price for your scrap gold.

Step 1

Establish what is the karat rating of your scrap gold. Most, if not all jewelry has a hallmark stamp on it indicating its karat rating (10k, 14k and so on) For scrap gold extracted from electronic appliances you will need to test for the purity of the gold.

You can work out the percentage of pure gold in your item in the following way

10 karat gold = 10/24

14 karat gold = 14/24

18 karat gold = 18/24

22 karat gold = 22/24

Step 2

Weigh the gold item in either grams or ounces.

Step 3

Get the current price of gold

Calculating the Price of Scrap Gold in Grams

Example: Lets imagine I have a 14 karat ring that weighs 4 grams. To calculate the scrap gold price I do the following

1) Find the current gold price - lets say for this example it is $1200

2) Scrap Gold Price = (14/24) x 1200 = 700 (the price of 14k gold per ounce)

700/31.10134768 = 22.50 ( the price of 14k gold per gram)

22.50 x 4 = $90 - the scrap gold price of my ring

Calculating the Price of Scrap Gold in Ounces

Lets say I have an 18k ring that weighs 1/10th ounce. To find out the scrap gold price I need to do the following calculation.

1) Get the current price of gold - once again lets say it is $1200

2) (18/24) x 1200 = $900 (the price of 18 karat gold per ounce)

3) 1/10 x900 = $90 (the scrap gold value of my 1/10th ounce 18 karat gold ring)

There are various online scrap gold calculators that will automatically calculate the scrap gold price of any item you may have as long as you know the weight and karat rating.