How Much Is My Gold Jewelry Worth?
If you are asking yourself this question, you may have multiple reasons for asking. You may be thinking of selling your gold jewelry, or maybe you are calculating your net worth and want to brag about your bling.
Keep in mind if you wish to sell jewelry that you own, unless it is a valuable antique, the gold in your necklace isn’t worth what a new piece of jewelry would bring in a store. That said, we are going to calculate the value of the actual gold in it.
Let’s say you have a 14k gold chain. It has seen better days, but the gold in it is definitely intact.
How Much Gold Is In a 14-Karat Necklace?
Pure gold has 24k. That is 100% pure gold, as pure as it gets. So, it stands to reason that 14k has less gold. The purity of 14k is calculated like this: 14 divided by 24 equals .5833, or 58.33 percent pure gold. Next you need to weigh just the gold in the necklace and convert this number into grams or troy ounces, because the price of gold is valued in dollars per ounce. It goes without saying that you will need a very accurate scale – one calibrated in grams, ideally. And lastly you need to look up the price of gold at any given time (it changes constantly).
You weigh your gold necklace (without the stones, if there are any) and it weighs .5 grams. There are 0.0160754 troy ounces in a half a gram (look it up here: https://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/grams-to-troy-ounces.htm.)
The Calculation
So, here’s how your calculation would go: .5833 times .0160754 equals 0.00937732 troy ounces. Then multiply that by the price of gold per troy ounce. Let’s say it’s $1200 today. So the gold in this one piece is worth only $11.25. And the dealer will offer you 60% to 80% of that (probably the low end). So you may end up getting only about $7.00 or so for it.
If that’s the case, you might be better off to give the jewelry to a friend or relative. You could even trade pieces with them, for a new look.
Only you can decide if it’s worth the trouble to sell the jewelry. Another option would be to offer the piece (or more than one item) to the jeweler as a trade-in on a new piece. There may be more negotiating room in the trade.
