Precious Metals Explained: What Really Decides the Value of Your Gold, Silver, and Platinum
Purity, weight, and the daily spot market. Here is how those three numbers work together, and what they mean for the jewelry sitting in your drawer here in Houston.
The value of a precious metal item comes from three numbers: how pure the metal is, how much it weighs, and what that metal is trading for on the day you sell. Purity multiplied by weight gives the amount of actual pure metal in the piece, and that amount is priced against the live market. Brand, craftsmanship, and any diamonds or gemstones are valued separately, on top of the metal.
Why the Metal Matters More Than People Expect
Most people bring in a piece of jewelry thinking about what they paid for it. That is a fair instinct, but retail price and metal value are two different things. A retail tag covers design, marketing, the store, and the margin. The metal underneath has its own value that never goes away, and on older or broken pieces it is usually the biggest part of the offer.
Once you understand purity, weight, and spot price, offers stop feeling like a mystery. You can do rough math in your head before you walk in, compare two buyers honestly, and know when a number is fair. That is the whole point of this guide.
A quick consultation at the counter covers purity testing, weighing, and the current market, all before any number is quoted.
Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium
Four metals carry real market value in the jewelry world. Each behaves a little differently, and knowing which one you have changes the conversation.
- Gold. The most traded of the four. Never rusts, never tarnishes, and holds value in any karat from 10K up to 24K.
- Silver. Far cheaper per ounce, so weight matters much more. Sterling, coins, and flatware all count.
- Platinum. Dense, naturally white, and usually marked 950 or PLAT. Heavier than gold in the same ring size.
- Palladium. Less common in jewelry, mostly seen in wedding bands and white gold alloys, but genuinely valuable.
Everything else you might have, stainless steel, brass, plated costume pieces, has no metal value. It can still be attractive jewelry, it just does not trade on a metals market.
Number One: Purity
Pure gold is too soft for daily wear, so it gets mixed with other metals for strength. Karat is simply the recipe. Twenty four parts make the whole, and the karat number tells you how many of those parts are gold. That stamp inside your ring is the starting point of every offer.
| Stamp | Karat | Gold content | Common use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 417 | 10K | 41.7% | Class rings, budget chains |
| 585 | 14K | 58.3% | Most US engagement and fine jewelry |
| 750 | 18K | 75.0% | Designer and European pieces |
| 916 | 22K | 91.6% | Indian and Middle Eastern jewelry |
| 999 | 24K | 99.9% | Bullion bars and coins |
| 925 | Sterling silver | 92.5% silver | Jewelry, flatware, hollowware |
| 950 / PLAT | Platinum | 95.0% platinum | Rings and settings |
An 18K bracelet is worth noticeably more per gram than a 14K one of identical size, because there is more gold inside it. Two pieces can look the same across a counter and price out very differently. If the stamp has worn off, a quick acid or electronic test settles it in a minute or two, without harming the piece.
Watch for plated and filled pieces
Gold plated and gold filled items carry a very thin layer of gold over a base metal. Stamps like GP, GF, HGE, or 14K GE point to this. They look convincing and they are perfectly nice to wear, but there is not enough recoverable gold in them to pay out on.
On mixed pieces, the metal, the stones, and the watch movement each get valued on their own terms.
Weight, and the Units That Confuse Everyone
Precious metals are not weighed the way groceries are. The trade uses troy units, and the difference is big enough to matter.
- One troy ounce = 31.10 grams. A regular kitchen ounce is 28.35 grams, so a troy ounce is about ten percent heavier.
- One pennyweight (dwt) = 1.555 grams. Many buyers quote gold per pennyweight, and there are 20 of them in a troy ounce.
- Grams are the everyday unit at the counter, and the easiest one to check yourself.
Always ask which unit a quote uses. A price per pennyweight will look much larger than a price per gram for the exact same offer, and that gap is where a lot of confusion starts.
One more thing worth knowing: clasps, spring bars, stones, and any glue or resin get deducted before the metal is priced. Nobody pays gold rates for a cubic zirconia.
Number Three: The Spot Price
Spot price is what one troy ounce of pure metal is trading for on the global market right now. It moves all day, every business day, and it is the same benchmark whether you are in Houston, London, or Hong Kong. No local buyer sets it and no local buyer can ignore it.
The math is straightforward. Take the weight of your piece, multiply by its purity to get the pure metal content, then multiply that by the current spot price. That gives you the melt value, which is the honest ceiling on scrap. A working offer sits just under it, because refining, assay, and shipping all cost real money.
A quick example
Say you have a 20 gram 14K gold chain. Twenty grams times 58.3 percent gives about 11.7 grams of pure gold, which is roughly 0.375 of a troy ounce. Multiply that fraction by the day's gold spot price and you have your melt value. Run the same math on a second quote and you can compare two buyers in seconds.
Because spot moves, a quote is only good for that day. If a market swing is in your favor, a licensed shop will requote rather than hold you to yesterday's number.
Silver is a volume game. Odd coins, broken chains, and single earrings all add to the same weight.
Sterling, Coins, and the Value of a Full Box
Silver trades for a small fraction of gold per ounce, which changes how you should think about it. One sterling ring is barely worth the trip. A shoebox of tangled chains, mismatched earrings, and old flatware can be worth real money.
Look for 925, STERLING, or STER stamped on the back of a piece or the underside of a handle. Silver plate is usually marked EP, EPNS, or simply carries a maker's name with no purity number at all, and it holds no metal value.
Coins are their own conversation
United States dimes, quarters, and half dollars dated 1964 and earlier are 90 percent silver. Some coins also carry collector value well above their metal content, so it is worth having them looked at rather than tossing them in the melt pile.
Sterling flatware is the one people forget. A full service that has not left the cabinet in twenty years often weighs several pounds, though weighted handles on knives and candlesticks are filled with cement or resin and get deducted.
Bullion is priced almost purely on weight and purity, which makes it the cleanest transaction of all.
Why the Same Metal Can Pay Differently
A one ounce silver bar and an ounce of tangled sterling chain contain similar metal, but they are not equally easy to handle. Bullion is already refined, stamped, and verified, so it moves at a very tight margin to spot.
Jewelry has to be tested, sorted by karat, stripped of stones and findings, and refined before it becomes usable metal again. That extra work is why scrap sits a little further under spot. It is not a trick, it is the cost of turning a broken bracelet back into a bar.
When a piece is worth more than its metal
Sometimes the melt number is the wrong number entirely. Signed designer jewelry, intact luxury watches, antique pieces, and rings with quality center stones can be worth well above their metal content. A good buyer checks both values and offers you the higher one.
That is exactly why it pays to have someone look before anything goes in the scrap bin. Once a piece is melted, whatever made it special is gone for good.
Platinum and Palladium, the Quiet Ones
Platinum shows up most often in engagement rings and settings, usually stamped PLAT, PT950, or 950. It is noticeably heavier than white gold, so if a ring feels dense for its size, that is a clue. Platinum also does not need rhodium plating to stay white, which is why an older platinum ring still looks bright while a white gold one has gone slightly yellow.
Palladium sits in the same family and turns up in wedding bands and as an alloy inside white gold. Stamps read 950Pd or Pd950. It is lighter than platinum and less common at the counter, but it carries genuine value and should never be lumped in with costume metal.
Both metals are tested differently than gold, so a shop that handles them regularly will have the right equipment. If someone quotes you a platinum ring at gold rates without testing it, get a second opinion.
Six Things Worth Doing Before You Sell
Find the stamps
Check clasps, inner bands, and the backs of pendants. A loupe or your phone camera at full zoom usually does the job.
Sort by karat
Keep 10K, 14K, and 18K in separate piles. Mixed lots get valued at the lowest common purity unless someone separates them.
Weigh it at home
A cheap gram scale gets you close enough to sanity check any offer before you leave the house.
Check the day's spot
Look up the gold and silver price the morning you go. Two minutes of homework changes the whole conversation.
Bring everything
Single earrings, bent chains, dental gold, and old class rings all count. Broken does not mean worthless.
Do not clean or melt
Harsh polishing can damage antique or designer pieces and cost you the premium that made them valuable.
Want to Know What Your Metal Is Actually Worth?
Bring it in and watch it get tested and weighed in front of you. Free, no obligation, and no appointment needed at either Houston location.
Explore Our Jewelry Pawn Shop ServicesWhat a Real Appraisal Looks Like
A proper evaluation takes a few minutes and happens where you can see it. The stamps get read, purity gets confirmed with an acid or electronic test, and the piece goes on a calibrated scale. Stones and non metal parts are noted and deducted. Then the numbers are run against the current market and you get a figure, along with an explanation of how it was reached.
You should never feel rushed into a decision. A free quote is a free quote, and taking it to a second buyer down the road is a normal thing to do. Any shop that pressures you to sell on the spot is telling you something about itself.
At Houston Loan & Jewelry we work with gold, silver, platinum, and palladium every day, along with diamonds, designer jewelry, and luxury watches. Customers come to us from across the metro, including Katy, Sugar Land, Pearland, Spring, Cypress, Humble, Kingwood, Missouri City, Stafford, Rosenberg, Channelview, and The Woodlands. You can see the full range of what we handle on our Houston jewelry pawn shop services page, whether you want to sell outright or take a pawn loan and keep ownership.
Sell or pawn, the metal math is the same
If you would rather not part with a piece permanently, a pawn loan uses the same valuation as collateral. You get cash now, the item stays safe in the vault, and you pick it up when the loan is paid. Nothing about the metal calculation changes, only what happens to the item afterward.
Frequently Asked Questions
Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. All four are traded on global markets and all four hold value in jewelry form. Gold and silver are by far the most common at a jewelry counter, while platinum shows up mostly in engagement rings and palladium in wedding bands and white gold alloys.
Weight multiplied by purity gives the pure gold content, and that content is priced against the day's spot price. A 20 gram 14K chain contains about 11.7 grams of pure gold, since 14K is 58.3 percent gold. Stones, clasps, and any non gold parts are deducted before the calculation.
It means sterling silver, which is 92.5 percent pure silver mixed with 7.5 percent copper for strength. It is the standard for silver jewelry and flatware in the United States. Items marked EP or EPNS are silver plated instead and carry no metal value.
No. A troy ounce is 31.10 grams while a standard ounce is 28.35 grams, so a troy ounce is roughly ten percent heavier. All precious metal prices are quoted per troy ounce, which is why a home kitchen scale reading will not match a dealer's number.
Yes. Condition does not affect metal value at all. Broken chains, bent rings, single earrings, and old class rings are all weighed and tested the same way as intact pieces. Bring everything, since small items add up quickly once they are on the scale together.
Houston Loan & Jewelry offers free, no obligation appraisals at both locations, 1801 Durham Drive STE 7 in the Heights and 3270 S Loop W near the Medical Center. Testing and weighing happen in front of you, no appointment is needed, and you can call (713) 766-2919 with any questions first.
Find Out What Your Precious Metals Are Worth
Whether you want to buy, sell, or pawn, our team gives free, no obligation appraisals with some of the highest cash payouts in Houston. Walk in any time, no appointment needed.