What Is the Metal Actually Worth?

Most jewellery pricing is a black box. You are quoted a number and told to trust it. This calculator opens it: enter the purity and the weight, and it tells you the raw metal value at live spot price - the same number a refiner or a dealer is working from.

Use it to sanity-check a quote, to value a piece you already own, or to understand why a 14K chain at 60 grams costs what it costs. Gold, silver and platinum update every five minutes.

How the Maths Works

Spot price is quoted per troy ounce, which is 31.1034768 grams - not the 28.35 grams of a kitchen ounce. Divide spot by 31.1034768 and you have the value of one gram of pure metal.

Then purity. Karat is a fraction of 24: 14K is 14/24, or 58.5% gold; 18K is 75%; 22K is 91.6%. Sterling silver is 92.5%, which is where the “925” stamp comes from. Multiply the per-gram pure value by that fraction and you have the per-gram value of the actual alloy. Multiply by the weight and you have the metal value of the piece.

What This Number Does Not Include

Metal value is the floor, not the price. A finished piece also carries the stones, the casting, the setting labour, the polishing, and the loss that happens whenever metal is worked. On an iced piece the diamonds routinely cost more than the gold holding them.

It cuts the other way too. If you are selling to a refiner, expect somewhere between 80% and 95% of metal value depending on volume - they have to refine it, and that costs them.

Why We Publish This

Because we quote at spot. Every Nuralet piece over $1,000 is priced from the actual metal weight and stone count at the day’s rate, and we will show you the breakdown if you ask. Handing you the calculator we use ourselves is the cheapest way to prove that.