How to Weigh Gold

Learn how to weigh gold.

If you want to weigh gold, it's not quite as simple as it sounds. The reason is that gold in the form of coins, bars or jewelry is almost never 100 percent pure. A piece of pure gold is soft and damaged easily, so it is combined with other metal to make it hard and durable. However, it's easy to weigh gold once you know how to calculate the actual amount of gold an object contains.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Precision scale
• Calculator (optional)
• Magnifying glass (for some jewelry)

1. Find the percentage of gold in gold bullion (bars or coins). Bars have information imprinted on the metal itself. For coins, you'll need to look up the specifications for the coin, which can be found in any catalog offering that particular type of coin. Once you know this proportion or percentage, use a precision balance scale to weigh the gold and then calculate the amount of actual gold. For example, if you have gold Krugerrands, the percentage is standardized at 22 karats (91.67 percent). If you weigh 10 Krugerrands and get 10.091 ounces, just multiply this by 91.67 percent. The result is that you have 9.25 ounces of gold.

2. Learn how to weigh and calculate pennyweight of gold jewelry. The proportion of actual gold in jewelry is rated in karats, ranging from zero karats (zero gold content) to 24 karats (pure gold). Because gold jewelry is usually very small, jewelers express the weight in "pennyweight" (abbreviated DWT). One pennyweight is equal to 1/20th of an ounce of gold.

3. Determine the amount of gold in a piece of jewelry. The first thing you need to do is find the jeweler's mark to determine the karat number. This may be very small, so you'll occasionally need a magnifying glass to read it. If you are using a calculator, convert into decimal notation by dividing the karat number by 24. For example, for 18-karat gold, divide 18 by 24 to get 0.75 (the item is 75 percent gold).

4. Weigh gold jewelry using a precision scale as you would with gold bullion. Multiply the result by the percentage of gold in the item (from Step 3). Using the example from Step 3, if the jewelry weighs 0.4 ounces, you multiply 0.75 (the decimal equivalent of 18 karats) by 0.4 to get 0.30 ounces of gold.

5. Express the weight of gold in jewelry in pennyweight. There are 20 pennyweight in an ounce, so just multiply the weight by 20. In the example in Step 4, this is 20 times 0.30 ounces, giving 6 pennyweight.

References

• Gold Pawn Shop

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish