Before gathering all the gold jewelry, scraps, pieces or teeth and rushing to the sell them at 192.232.195.234/~goldbuyerok, it’s important to know just how much gold you have. First and foremost, larger amounts get better returns than small ones because of shipping and refining expenses.
Know your percentages:
Most gold is mixed with an alloy to harden it and make the ultimate item more durable. Start by sorting out your items by type – gold, platinum, silver – and fineness, the percentage of gold opposed to other blended metals (beware of fraudulently marked jewelry).
While some pieces may have a fineness mark as well, gold is often times marked with a karat purity mark instead. Pure gold is 24 karat and fineness is found by dividing the karat by 24, e.g. 18K divided by 24K = 750 fine gold, or 75 percent fineness. (Disclaimer: Marks such as 18K H.G.E., 18K G.E. or 1/20 14K GF are not gold, but are gold plated.)
| FINENESS MARKS YOU MAY SEE AND WHAT THEY MEAN | |||
| GOLD | Fineness | Purity | Notes |
| 999 | 24 karat | “carat” in UK | |
| 958.3 | 23 karat | Often used in Eastern jewelry | |
| 916 | 22 karat | Prevalent in the East & Mid-east | |
| 750 | 18 karat | Standard in Europe | |
| 583 | 14 karat | May be marked“585” in US | |
| 500 | 12 karat | Half gold, half alloys | |
| 10 karat | 10 karat | Often used in class rings, etc. | |
| 375 | 9 carat | Not legally “gold” in US | |
| PLATINUM | 999 | “three nines” | Purest platinum |
| 995 | Most common for bullion | ||
| 950 | Most common for jewelry | ||
| 900 | “one nine” | Also common in jewelry | |
| Platinum is often also marked with notation of its alloy | |||
| SILVER | 999.9 | ultra-fine | Canadian Silver Maple Leaf |
| 999 | “three nines” | Used in bullion bars | |
| 958 | Britannia silver | ||
| 950 | French “1st Standard” | ||
| 925 | Sterling silver | ||
| 925 | gold color | “Vermeil”, gold plated silver | |
| 900 | “one nine” | USA coin silver | |
| 1 g | 0.32 ozt | 0.63 dwt | 0.352 avoirdupois ounce |
Chart by Nancy Stacy, GG, ASA, Master Gemologist Appraiser
So now you have piles of precious metals and sub-piles of fineness. Now, it’s time to weigh your piles to calculate the approximate value of each pile based on the current spot price of gold.
Know the weight:
Precious metals are weighed in Troy ounces (ozt), which is about 1.10 times the weight of a “regular” ounce and equal to about 31.1 grams or 20 pennyweights (dwt). Weighing your precious metals in grams on a food scale or a digital scale is most convenient. Once you have weighed each group of metal of the same fineness, you can figure the fine gold content by looking up today’s “spot price” on www.kitco.com, and referencing the chart above.
