Scrap gold calculator for pawn shops
Enter the weight, the karat and today’s spot price. The calculator gives the value of the fine gold in the piece and your offer at the percentage you pay. Nothing is sent anywhere; the arithmetic runs in your browser.
Calculator
The formula
Melt value = weight in grams × purity × (spot price per troy ounce ÷ 31.1035). A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, and spot is quoted per troy ounce. Purity is the karat divided by 24: 10k is 41.7% gold, 14k is 58.3%, 18k is 75%, 22k is 91.7%. 24k is treated as 99.9%.
Scales at the counter often read in pennyweight (dwt). One pennyweight is 1.5552 grams; the calculator converts it for you.
From melt value to an offer
Melt value is what the gold is worth, not what a refiner pays you. The refiner keeps a share and may charge for assay, and the price can move between the day you buy and the day you ship. Your offer percentage has to cover all of that and leave a margin. Shops set it themselves; use your refiner’s last settlement against what you paid to see what your real margin was.
Before you melt anything, ask whether the piece would sell for more as jewelry. A signed piece, a stone you would have to remove, or a style that moves well in your case is often worth more on the shelf than in the pot.
Where PawnCounter fits
PawnCounter reads your POS exports and shows what jewelry actually sold for in your shop and how long it sat, which is the number that decides melt or shelf. The same calculator is in the PawnCounter phone app for the counter, free with no sign-in, and adds up a whole pile by karat. A gold desk that puts melt value next to your own resale history is being built next and is not in PawnCounter yet.
Our stake is plain: PawnCounter is what we sell. The calculator on this page is free and stays free.
See these numbers for your own shop.
Upload a sales or inventory export from the POS you already run. The Profit X-Ray is free, needs no card, and is ready in minutes.