What Your Gold Is Really Worth at a Pawn Shop
Gold is the one category where you can calculate a pawn offer to within a few dollars before leaving your house — because unlike a used phone, gold has a live, global, per-gram price. Here's the exact math buyers use.
Step 1: Know your purity
Pure gold is too soft for jewelry, so it's alloyed. The karat stamp (look inside the band or on the clasp) tells you the fraction of actual gold:
| Stamp | Gold content | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 10K (or 417) | 41.7% | Minimum legally called "gold" in North America |
| 14K (or 585) | 58.5% | The most common jewelry standard |
| 18K (or 750) | 75.0% | Higher-end jewelry |
| 22K (or 916) | 91.6% | Common in South Asian and Middle Eastern jewelry |
| 24K (or 999) | 99.9% | Pure gold — coins and bars |
Beware stamps like GP (gold plated), GF (gold filled), HGE (heavy gold electroplate), or 925 (that's sterling silver, sometimes gold-toned). Plated items have almost no melt value.
Step 2: The melt value formula
Weigh your piece on a kitchen scale in grams, then:
Melt value = weight (g) × purity × current gold price per gram
Example with a 15-gram 14K chain and gold at (say) $75/gram: 15 × 0.585 × 75 = $658 melt value. Gold prices move daily — check the current spot price the day you go, or run your piece through our estimator, which prices it against live market data.
Step 3: What shops actually pay
Pawn shops typically offer 60–85% of melt value for scrap-grade gold. The spread depends on volume (heavier lots get better rates), local competition, and whether the piece is sellable as jewelry rather than scrap. A desirable branded piece in good condition can beat melt entirely — it gets priced as jewelry, not metal.
The uncomfortable truth about stones
Most pawn shops value diamonds and gems far below what you paid. Retail diamond markup is enormous, resale demand for small stones is weak, and verifying quality takes expertise. Small stones (under 0.5 carat) are often valued at little or nothing beyond the gold they sit in. A certified stone above one carat with a GIA report is a different conversation — bring the certificate, and consider a specialty jewelry buyer before a generalist shop.
Getting the best gold price
- Weigh and calculate melt value at home first. Walking in with the number changes the negotiation completely.
- Separate karats — don't let a mixed bag get priced at the lowest karat in it.
- Get two or three quotes; gold offers vary more between shops than almost any category.
- Don't clean gold aggressively — light polishing is fine, but you can't damage its melt value, so never risk abrasives on antique pieces that may have collector value above melt.
Not sure whether to pawn or sell outright? Gold is the strongest category for loans — see Pawn or Sell? — because its value doesn't depreciate while it sits. Our value retention ranking puts gold at the very top for a reason.
Frequently asked questions
How do shops test that gold is real?
Acid testing (a tiny scratch tested with karat-specific acids), electronic testers, or XRF scanners that read the alloy without damage. The magnet test you can do at home rules out obvious fakes — real gold is never magnetic — but doesn't confirm purity.
Is it better to sell gold when prices are high?
Yes, and unlike electronics, gold rewards waiting when prices trend up. If you don't need the cash today, watching the spot price for a few weeks costs you nothing in depreciation.
Do broken chains and single earrings have value?
Full value. Melt buyers don't care about condition — a snapped 14K chain is worth exactly the same per gram as a perfect one.