14K Gold Calculator

Why 14K is the American standard

14K gold is 58.3% pure — 14 of 24 parts gold, alloyed with copper and silver for strength. It is the most common karat in the United States by a wide margin: most wedding bands, engagement ring settings, necklaces, and bracelets sold in American stores are 14K gold. If you are emptying a jewelry box to sell, odds are most of it is 14K gold. Before you sell any of it, run the pieces through this page or the full scrap gold calculator so you know each item's melt value at the live spot price.

The 58.3% figure is also why two identical-looking chains can differ in value: one is 14K gold throughout, the other is a thin 14K layer over a silver or brass core. Solid pieces are stamped plainly; bonded and plated ones must say so. When a chain's heft feels wrong for its size, weigh it and compare against the typical ranges below before assuming the best.

How to calculate 14K gold value per gram

The math is the same as any karat: spot price per troy ounce ÷ 31.1035 gives the pure-gold price per gram, and multiplying by 0.583 gives the 14K price per gram. Multiply that by your item's weight and you have the melt value. Enter the weight above and the calculator shows the result at the current spot price.

A useful shortcut for on-the-spot checks: 14K is worth a bit under 60% of the pure gold price. If pure gold runs $128.60 per gram — the $4,000-per-ounce illustration used below — then 14K gold is about $75 per gram. Anchoring that one number in your head before visiting buyers makes lowball offers obvious in seconds.

Worked example: a 5-gram 14K wedding band

Take a spot price of $4,000 per troy ounce for illustration. Pure gold is $4,000 ÷ 31.1035 = $128.60 per gram, and 14K gold is $128.60 × 0.583 = $74.97 per gram. A 5-gram gold wedding band therefore melts at about $375. From there the payout tiers apply: a pawn shop at 55–70% offers roughly $206–$262, a local jeweler at 70–85% about $262–$319, an online gold buyer at 80–95% around $300–$356, and a refiner at 95–98% up to $356–$367 on qualifying lots.

The calculator above performs the identical steps with the live spot price and your exact weight — the illustration exists so you can verify the math by hand once and trust the tool afterward.

Typical weights for common 14K gold items

If you have no scale handy, these ranges give a rough starting point: rings usually weigh 3–6 grams, necklaces 10–30 grams depending on length and link style, and bracelets 5–15 grams. Actual weights vary a lot — a heavy Cuban link chain can triple those figures — so weigh before you sell. Remember to subtract stone weight; diamonds and gems are paid separately or not at all.

Two habits make these estimates useful rather than misleading: weigh every piece individually instead of trusting averages, and log the stamp next to each weight as you go. A simple list — item, karat, grams — turns a pile of gold jewelry into something you can price line by line and defend at the counter. Buyers respect sellers who arrive with a written list; it signals the gold has already been priced.

585 vs. 583: two stamps, one karat

Divide 14 by 24 and you get 58.33% — which is why some older American pieces are stamped 583. European convention rounds the other way: alloys are made to 58.5% purity so they never fall below the 14K threshold, and the stamp reads 585. The value difference between a 583 piece and a 585 piece is about a third of one percent — under a dollar on a typical ring — so treat every 583, 585, or 14K mark identically when you calculate the gold value.

Color changes nothing either: white gold and rose gold marked 14K contain exactly the same 58.3% gold as yellow — the hue comes from the alloying metals, and the rhodium plating on white gold adds nothing recoverable. What does matter is a suffix: "14K GP" or "14K HGE" means plated fashion jewelry carrying almost no gold at all.

The under-karating trick to watch for

Some scrap buyers price 14K gold items as if they were half a karat lower — a hedge, they say, against under-karated jewelry from decades past. On a 20-gram lot that quiet haircut costs you real money. Run your numbers here first, ask the buyer what purity they used, and compare their offer against your own melt figure before you accept anything.

A fair offer for 14K gold should land between 55% and 98% of melt depending on the buyer: pawn shops sit at the bottom of that range, local jewelers in the middle, online buyers higher, and refiners at the top. Because 14K makes up the bulk of most American jewelry boxes, even a small percentage difference between two quotes adds up quickly across a full lot — sorting your pieces by karat and getting at least two offers is worth the extra hour.

How 14K compares with other karats when selling

Gram for gram, 18K carries about 29% more gold than 14K, and 10K about 29% less, so a mixed jewelry box should be sorted by stamp before anything gets weighed. Price 750-stamped pieces with the 18k gold calculator and 417-stamped ones with the 10k gold calculator; mixing karats in one weighing hands the buyer an excuse to price the whole lot at the lowest purity.

For the weighing itself, grams beat ounces: every pocket scale speaks grams, and there is no troy-versus-regular ambiguity. The gold calculator in grams covers scale accuracy in detail — on a 4-gram ring, a whole-gram kitchen scale can be off by more than 12%. However you weigh, the sequence stays the same: sort by karat, weigh in grams, multiply by purity and the live gold price — and never sell gold on the same visit you got the quote unless the number clears your own.

Frequently Asked Questions