Sort your jewelry by its karat stamp, pull out signed, antique and stone-set pieces, and get a rough weight in grams before you call anyone. Then sell to a buyer who tests and weighs each karat group in front of you and puts the offer in writing. Scrap gold is priced on pure gold weight and the live spot price, so knowing your karats and grams protects you.
Read the karat stamp first
Most gold jewelry sold in this country has a tiny stamp on the clasp, inside a ring band, or on a small tag near the end of a chain. The stamp tells you how much of the metal is gold. The rest is silver, copper or other metals mixed in to make the piece harder and to change its color.
European and many older pieces use a three-digit number in place of the K. The number is close to the gold content in parts per thousand, so 585 marks 14K and 750 marks 18K. Ten grams of 14K and ten grams of 18K look alike on a scale, but they hold very different amounts of gold.
A missing stamp does not mean a piece is fake. Stamps wear off ring bands and clasps after years of use, and some older or handmade pieces were never stamped at all. Unmarked gold can still be tested, and we test it the same way as stamped pieces.
White gold and rose gold are still gold. A 14K white gold ring holds the same 58.3% gold as a 14K yellow ring, and the other metals in the mix change the color.
| Karat stamp | Number stamp | Gold content | Pure gold in 10 grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10K | 417 | 41.7% | 4.17 grams |
| 14K | 585 | 58.3% | 5.83 grams |
| 18K | 750 | 75% | 7.5 grams |
| 22K | 916 | 91.6% | 9.16 grams |
| 24K | 999 | 99.9% | 9.99 grams |
Gold-filled and plated marks to watch for
Some pieces look like solid gold and carry a stamp saying otherwise. Gold-filled and gold-plated jewelry has a thin layer of gold bonded or plated over brass or another base metal. That layer is so thin that these pieces hold very little gold, and as scrap they bring little or nothing.
A stamp like 1/20 12K GF fools people who read only the karat number. Read the whole mark and look for letters after it. Gold-filled pieces also tend to show brass or a darker metal where the surface has worn through, often at the clasp, along the edges of a bracelet or on the back of a pendant.
Costume jewelry with no stamp is common in older jewelry boxes. If a piece turns skin green or shows a different color underneath where it has rubbed, it is probably not solid gold. Bring anything you are unsure about and we will test it.
- GF means gold-filled. It often appears with a fraction, as in 1/20 12K GF, meaning one twentieth of the weight is 12K gold.
- GP or GEP means gold-plated or gold electroplate.
- HGE means heavy gold electroplate. The plating is thicker, and it is still plating.
- RGP means rolled gold plate, similar to gold-filled with an even thinner gold layer.
- 925 or STERLING marks sterling silver, which sometimes has a thin gold wash on the surface.
Grams, pennyweights and troy ounces
Gold buyers weigh in grams or in pennyweights, written dwt. One pennyweight is 1.555 grams, and 20 pennyweights make one troy ounce of 31.1035 grams. A troy ounce is heavier than the ordinary ounce on a kitchen scale, so an ounce reading at home will not match a spot price quoted per troy ounce.
Here is the math an honest buyer runs. Weigh each karat group, multiply by its gold content, and you have pure gold weight. Ten grams of 14K holds about 5.83 grams of pure gold, a little under 0.19 troy ounces. Pure weight times the live spot price is the melt figure, and an offer is some share of that figure.
A digital kitchen or postal scale that reads grams is good enough for a rough idea. Weigh each karat group on its own. Stones, pearls and clasps made of other metals add weight that is not gold, so expect the gold weight to come in a little lower than the scale says.
Ask each buyer which unit the offer uses. A price per pennyweight and a price per gram sound very different for the same gold, and the only difference is the unit, at 1.555 grams to the pennyweight.
| Grams | Pennyweights (dwt) | Troy ounces |
|---|---|---|
| 1.555 | 1 | 0.05 |
| 5 | 3.2 | 0.16 |
| 10 | 6.4 | 0.32 |
| 15.55 | 10 | 0.5 |
| 31.1 | 20 | 1 |
Why testing and weighing should happen in front of you
Two numbers set a scrap gold offer: the karat and the weight. If either one is decided out of your sight, you cannot check the offer. A buyer who carries your jewelry to a back room, or asks you to mail it in and wait for a check, is asking you to take both numbers on faith.
At our appointments we sort your gold by karat on the table between us. We test it with non-destructive methods, with no acid and no scratching, and weigh each group on a calibrated scale you can read yourself. Offers follow the live spot price, and the written list is yours to keep whether or not you sell.
Ask every buyer what karat each group tested, what it weighed and which spot price the offer uses. If a buyer will not answer plainly, get a second offer before you sell.
Pieces to set aside before you sell for melt
Scrap value is the floor for gold jewelry. Some pieces are worth more as jewelry than as metal, and selling those by the gram leaves money on the table.
We set aside signed and antique pieces that may be worth more as jewelry, and we tell you so. We buy gold jewelry for its gold, so for those pieces a jeweler or an auction house may pay you more. If a ring holds a diamond, have the stone looked at before you accept any gold price for the ring.
Setting a piece aside gives you time to decide. Many families end up keeping a ring or a watch once they see what the rest of the box is worth on its own.
- Signed pieces with a maker's name stamped near the karat mark
- Antique and estate pieces such as Victorian lockets, Art Deco rings and old watch chains
- Rings, pendants and earrings set with diamonds or colored stones
- Gold pocket watches and wristwatches, which can sell to watch collectors
- Coins mounted in bezels, since the coin may be a collector piece on its own
- Class rings and charms your family may want to keep
Dental gold, broken chains and other scrap
Dental gold is usually a gold alloy, and we buy it by weight like other scrap gold. Crowns and bridges do not need to be cleaned first. Bring them in a small bag or envelope and we will test and weigh them with you.
Broken chains, single earrings, bent rings and tangled necklaces all sell by the gram, the same as whole pieces. Damage does not lower the gold content. Put each karat group in its own bag or envelope so nothing small goes missing on the way.
Sellers lose the most money to mail-in kits that pay after the gold is gone, buyers who quote one price for a whole bag without sorting karats, and anyone who will not say which spot price they are using.
Gold coins mixed in with jewelry should come out of the scrap pile too. U.S. gold coins struck before 1933 are 90% gold, and a Gold Eagle or Krugerrand is 22K, so they are priced as coins and kept apart from a bag of broken chains.
Selling gold jewelry around Philadelphia
Philadelphia has a long jewelry trade of its own. Jewelers' Row on Sansom Street is often called the oldest diamond district in America. It is a sensible place to have a diamond or a signed piece looked at by a jeweler before anything goes to melt. The gold that stays behind in the box, the broken chains and single earrings and outgrown rings, is the part that sells by the gram.
A jewelry box from the region tends to hold a little of everything. A South Philly rowhouse might give up 14K chains and religious medals next to a 10K high school class ring. A Main Line estate in Wynnewood or Bryn Mawr might add 18K European pieces stamped 750 and a gold pocket watch. Dental gold shows up in film canisters and pill bottles in Northeast Philly and Delaware County homes alike. Sorting those pieces by stamp before anyone puts a number on them keeps a 10K ring from being priced like 18K, and the reverse. For a large estate with drawers full of jewelry, sellers can ask about a home visit, so nothing has to ride across the city in a coat pocket.
We buy gold jewelry by private appointment only, so there is no counter, no line and nobody watching over your shoulder. Bring your pieces and a government-issued photo ID, and we will sort, test and weigh everything with you. Call 215-798-9204 to set a time anywhere from Center City to Doylestown, Media, West Chester, Moorestown, Princeton or Wilmington, and we will call you back the same business day. If a piece is headed to a jeweler first, take it out before the appointment, or bring it and we will set it aside with a note on your list.