Mighty Bargain Hunter

Value of a gold-filled jewelry: A reader’s question

Stumble it! Tip it! Facebook it! | 11/10/10

Got this question a couple of days ago from a reader:

How much is 15.4 grams of gold filled worth to a gold and silver place?

Here’s what I can tell you.

A gold and silver place will likely give you less than melt value for your chain. If they’re not going to resell your chain as-is, they may melt it themselves, or sell it to a scrapper for somewhere around melt value.

What is melt value for your chain, then? The value of your gold jewelry depends on what kind of marking is on the chain. “Gold filled” means “gold, filled with some other base metal.” If the marking has a fraction, as in “1/20 14k”, then you can be guaranteed that the weight of the gold in the chain is at least that fraction. If it’s simply “14kgf” then there’s no guarantee as to how much gold is in there. It could be 5%, or it could be more or less.

Let’s assume that it’s at least 5% gold. Then the gold content is 0.05 times 15.4 grams, or 0.77 grams. This is 0.025 troy ounces. Now, with gold crossing $1,400 per troy ounce recently, this would put the value of the gold in your chain at 0.025 times $1,400, or $35.

A place that accepts gold (say, a pawn shop), again, will give you less than $35 for the chain, since they need to make a profit on the transaction. A mail-in gold place will give you far less.

So, the good news is that it’s worth something (hopefully), and gold is near an all-time high now. The bad news is that you might be able to get only a couple of pizzas with the money. In either case, there you go.

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