Scrap gold: Everything You Need To Know in 2020

Do you have any broken or unused gold jewelry at home? Do you want to get it sold at the best price? If yes, you have come to the right place. In the following sections, you will learn:

What is scrap gold?

Gold in any form like a broken gold chain or necklace, single earring, unused gold set, coins, and anything of such kind that you think is longer of any use to you, falls under the category of scrap gold. Such gold is mostly sent to a gold refinery where it’s melted and reprocessed for a fresh gold item like jewelry or something else.

Where do I sell my scrap gold jewelry?

If you are wondering where you can sell scrap gold, the answer is simple. Any gold jewelry dealer would show interest in buying your unused gold for a good amount. He won’t be interested in the actual article but the material being used in it i.e. gold. So, your scrap gold jewelry will more likely end up being reprocessed and repurposed in a refinery. However, there are certain things you need to check out before selling your scrap gold to one particular dealer.

First, make sure the dealer is a reputed one in the town and known for fair deals. Second, if the dealer spends too much on expensive advertising, he might pay you less for your gold to meet his advertising expenses. To find the best and higher-paying gold dealer, it’s recommended to get multiple quotes from multiple places and then have your final verdict.

How much is my scrap gold worth?

This is the most crucial part you need to pay attention to. For getting the most accurate worth of your scrap jewelry, you need to prep it well before weighing, something you will get to know today. So, let’s prepare the scrap gold jewelry before weighing it.

Prepare the scrap gold jewelry

First, remove the diamonds, gems, stones, or any such thing from your gold jewelry as it won’t add anything to the cost. For this, we would recommend you to use a flush cutting tool, a tool jewelers use for the same purpose. But make sure that you don’t hurt the stone or setting in doing so. Apply a small pressure on the prongs and take the gemstones off. 

Clean and dry the gold jewelry

After taking all the stones off the article, it’s time to clean the piece and dry it prior to weighing. Every sort of jewelry, be it earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, and so on accumulate dust, oil, sweat, soap particles, etc. with time. Although this doesn’t influence the weight and fineness of the scrap gold, it’s always good to get these off the gold jewelry. 

For this, what we recommend is an ultrasonic cleaner which will cost you as low as $30-$35. Just fill it with some soap solution, drop in the jewelry articles, and hit the start button. The ultrasonic cleaner uses ultrasonic waves to gently vibrate the pieces of jewelry to get rid of the grime and dust. After cleaning, dry the articles using a hairdryer and now it’s ready to be weighed.

Weigh the jewelry

Now, this part involves certain calculations. For this, get yourself either a jeweler’s scale or a food scale to weigh the jewelry and know its base value as a reference. If you’re unable to find either, take it to a nearby jewelry house for weighing. 

Now, as every gold jewelry has a distinct karat weight, it’s necessary to weight them in groups. Place the scrap gold jewelry on the scale, let the arrow come to rest at a particular gram weight, and it’s the final reading for your piece. As now we have weight, we can calculate its worth for which you need to know the CURRENT MARKET PRICE OF GOLD either through the internet or nearby gold house. For your reference, gold is valued per troy ounce which equals 31.1 grams per troy ounce. 

Divide today’s gold price in dollars/ounce by 31.1 to get today’s gold price in dollar/gram. For instance, if today’s gold price is $1600 per ounce, it will be $51.4 per gram. 

Final calculation of the gold’s worth

Above, we have calculated today’s gold price is $51.4 per gram. Multiply this with the fineness according to your jewelry’s karat. For example, for a 10k engagement ring, today’s price in gram is $51.4 and fineness is 0.4167. Therefore, 

SCRAP GOLD RING FINAL COST: $51.4 x 0.4167 = $21.44 per gram. 

So, this is how you can roughly calculate the cost of your scrap gold. 

FAQs