Scrap Gold Calculator

"Scrap value" simply means the melt value of the pure gold content in an item, with no credit given for craftsmanship, brand, or gemstones — it's the number a refiner would pay for the raw metal alone. The formula is straightforward: weight × purity × current spot price. Purity is where most confusion comes in, because jewelry is rarely made of pure gold. Today's 24K spot price in THB is ฿4,893.35 per gram — that's the number the calculator above starts from before applying your item's karat.

24K gold is 99.99% pure and uses a purity factor of 1.0. 22K (91.67% gold) uses 0.9167, 21K (87.5% gold) uses 0.875, and 18K (75% gold) uses 0.75 — the rest of the alloy is typically copper, silver, zinc, or nickel, added to make the metal harder and more wearable. A 10-gram 22K ring, for example, isn't worth 10 grams of gold — it's worth 10 × 0.9167 = 9.167 grams of pure gold content, at whatever today's 24K rate happens to be.

The karat stamp is usually the fastest way to identify purity: look for "24K," "22K," "18K," or the equivalent millesimal fineness marks — 999, 916, 875, and 750 respectively. If there's no visible stamp, a jeweler can test purity using an acid test or, more reliably, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis, which doesn't damage the item. Don't assume purity based on color or weight alone — white gold, rose gold, and yellow gold can all be the same karat despite looking very different.

What a dealer actually pays you will be less than the melt value calculated here — typically 70–90% of it, with the gap covering refining costs, assay fees, and the dealer's margin. An offer below 70% of melt value is generally considered low, and it's worth getting quotes from more than one buyer before selling, especially for larger items. You can find vetted buyers in our gold dealer directory, filterable by city and country.

One common mistake: weighing an item that includes stones, clasps, or other non-gold components without accounting for them. A jeweler's scale and a bit of judgment (or removing detachable stones first) will get you a far more accurate result than guessing. If you're valuing a whole collection rather than a single piece, weigh and calculate each karat group separately — mixing a 22K piece and an 18K piece into one combined weight will overstate or understate the total depending on which purity dominates.