Scrap gold price: value a mixed lot
Scrap gold is any gold sold for its metal rather than as jewellery: broken chains, single earrings, dated rings, a drawer of pieces nobody wears. Buyers price it by carat, so the first step is to sort it into 9ct, 14ct, 18ct and 22ct using the hallmarks, then weigh each pile. This calculator takes those weights, multiplies each by the share of gold UK hallmarking law sets for its carat and by today’s gold price in pounds, read from gold-api.com with its time, and adds them up. The total is the value of the gold in the lot. Below it you see what you would receive at different shares of that value, and if a buyer has made one offer for the whole lot, you can type it to see what share of the gold it pays. No figure here is a buyer’s price: Gold by Carat is an independent site, not a gold buyer or a dealer.
Example: value of the gold in the whole lot
£1,121
11.25 g of pure gold across 25.00 g of items
What a buyer would pay at different percentages of that value. No law or official body publishes what buyers pay, so these are not typical rates: compare your quotes with them.
| Paid at 60% of the gold value | £672.45 |
| Paid at 70% of the gold value | £784.53 |
| Paid at 80% of the gold value | £896.60 |
| Paid at 90% of the gold value | £1,009 |
Figures and rules checked by the site’s publisher, Radif Partners · How the values are worked out · Editorial policy
Sort, weigh, then value
Sort your pieces by the number stamped on them, weigh each pile, and type the weights above. Lay everything out and read the marks. 375 is 9ct, 585 is 14ct, 750 is 18ct, 916 is 22ct. Anything marked 925 is sterling silver, not white gold. Anything marked RG or RGP (rolled gold), GF (gold-filled) or GP (gold-plated) is only a thin layer of gold on another metal, and is not gold for scrap purposes. Pieces with no mark go in a separate pile to be tested.
Weigh each carat’s pile in grams. Take out what is not gold where you can: stones, pearls, watch movements, steel springs. Enter the weights in the calculator above. The result is the value of the gold in the lot at today’s price.
| Example lot | Weight | Gold inside | Metal value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9ct chains and rings | 20 g | 7.50 g | £747.17 |
| 18ct ring | 5 g | 3.75 g | £373.58 |
| Lot | 25 g | 11.25 g | £1,121 |
More detail below: tap a heading to open it.
Reading a scrap quote
Turn every quote into a share of your gold’s value, then compare. Scrap buyers usually quote per gram for each carat. Multiply each rate by your weight and add them, or simply type the total offer into the offer box of the calculator above. Either way you end with one number: the share of the metal the buyer is paying. That number is what you compare between buyers, because it does not move when the gold price does.
Watch for two things. A buyer that weighs your gold out of your sight, or does not tell you the weight it recorded, can pay a fair rate on a wrong weight. And a postal buyer that sends an offer after receiving your gold controls the timing: ask what happens if you refuse, how fast the gold comes back and whether returning it costs you.
Tax on scrap gold
Selling a few items of jewellery almost never creates a tax bill. Each item, or set sold together, sold for £6,000 or less is free of Capital Gains Tax, the tax on a profit when you sell something (the rule). The page on inherited gold covers jewellery that came from someone who has died.
Comparing two or three quotes
Got several quotes for the whole lot? Type each one in turn in the offer box at the top of the page. Each time, the calculator shows the share of the gold in your lot that the quote pays: the highest share is the best offer. The side-by-side comparison on the offer checker works for gold of a single carat; a mixed lot is compared here, one quote after the other. The guide to where to sell compares the types of buyer.