As the popularity of gold continues to increase, many people are looking to buy gold: sell gold. With such a hot market, you may want to consider selling your scrap gold to earn a little extra cash to help supplement your income. Selling gold is an excellent way to come up with money to pay your rent or buy groceries. With gold being such a high interest to many investors, you can find multiple gold buyers in every town. You can also find several online gold buyers who will purchase your scrap metal.


Selling your scrap gold is easy to do. Getting ripped off is also easy. The best way to prevent being scammed is by understanding how scrap gold prices are calculated. The amount that you receive for your scrap gold has nothing to do with the condition or craftsmanship of your gold. When you sell your scrap gold jewelry, you are selling based off of weight and purity. Nothing else matters when it comes to selling your gold for scrap. Now that you understand this, let’s take a look at how the price of scrap gold is calculated.

First, you must locate the marking on your jewelry that indicates the purity of your gold. This marking usually contains a number and the letter “K”. The letter “K” stands for Karats and is a measurement of gold purity. An example of a purity marking may be 14K or 18K. Although rarely used, 24K is the equivalent of pure gold.

Now that you have determined the purity of your gold, next you must weigh your piece using a scale. You can use a digital scale or something as simple as a metal jewelers scale. You can often find these scales in tobacco supply shops. Weigh your piece and take note of the weight in grams.

Take a look at the current gold price per gram. There are several websites that will give you live gold prices. Next, use the following scrap gold formula created by Healthy Financial Habits:

Scrap gold value = ((Karats/24) * weight in grams) (Current price per gram) (.80)

Your scrap gold price is multiplied by .80 because you will usually pay the refinery cost of your scrap gold which can be as high as 20%.

Author: Abdullah Patel