If you’ve ever walked into a “we buy gold” shop and walked out feeling like you got a number pulled out of thin air, you’re not imagining it. Gold has a real, published, up-to-the-minute market price — which means your jewelry has a real value that can be calculated, not guessed. Here’s how to know what that number is before anyone makes you an offer.

Three things decide the value of your gold

Every honest gold offer comes down to the same simple math: weight, purity, and the current spot price.

1. Purity — the karat stamp

Look for a tiny stamp on the clasp, the inside of a ring band, or the back of a pendant. It tells you how much of the piece is actually gold:

24K — pure gold (rare in jewelry because it’s soft)
18K — 75% gold, common in fine and European jewelry
14K — 58.3% gold, the most common in American jewelry
10K — 41.7% gold, the legal minimum to be called gold in the US

European pieces are often stamped with numbers instead: 750 means 18K, 585 means 14K. No stamp at all doesn’t mean it’s fake — older and handmade pieces frequently went unmarked — but it does mean the piece needs to be tested.

2. Weight — grams, not guesses

Gold is weighed in grams. A kitchen scale gets you close enough for a ballpark at home. Just remember that gemstones, clasps, and springs don’t count toward gold weight, so a chunky ring with a large stone weighs less in gold than it does on the scale.

3. The spot price — it changes every day

Gold trades on the open market like a stock, and the price moves daily. Before you sell anything, spend thirty seconds looking up today’s spot price per gram. That single number is your leverage in any negotiation.

The seller who knows the spot price walks in with power. The seller who doesn’t is negotiating blind.
— Marty Upfall

Why offers vary so wildly from buyer to buyer

Take the same gold chain to five buyers and you might get five offers spread hundreds of dollars apart. The difference isn’t the gold — it’s the buyer’s business model. Mail-in gold services and mall kiosks carry heavy overhead and pay some of the lowest rates in the industry. Pawn shops price for risk, not value. A dedicated buyer who deals in gold every day can pay closer to the metal’s true worth because they know exactly what they’re holding and exactly where it’s going.

When your jewelry is worth more than its gold

Here’s what a scale can’t tell you: some jewelry is worth far more intact than melted. Signed pieces from houses like Cartier, Tiffany & Co., or Van Cleef & Arpels, Victorian and Art Deco pieces, and jewelry with quality diamonds or colored stones can be worth multiples of their gold weight. A buyer who only quotes you “scrap price” on a signed piece is either missing its value or hoping you will.

This is why it matters to sell to someone with real expertise in jewelry — not just a scale and a calculator.

What to bring when you sell

The jewelry itself — cleaning is fine, but don’t repair or alter anything first
Any boxes, pouches, appraisals, or receipts you still have
A photo ID (licensed buyers are required to verify identity)

That’s it. A legitimate buyer will weigh and test your pieces in front of you, explain how they arrived at the number, and make an offer on the spot. If anyone wants to take your gold “in the back” or pressures you to decide before you’re ready, take your jewelry and leave.