Gold glossary
Every trade runs on shorthand, and gold runs on more of it than most. These are the terms behind the prices, stamps, and offers this site writes about — defined the way they work at a counter, not the way a textbook would put it. Each one links to the tool or guide where the term earns its keep.
Assay
Testing a piece of metal to establish what it actually contains, rather than what its stamp claims. Refiners assay incoming scrap before paying on it; the result, not the hallmark, is what settles the invoice.
At a retail counter the word covers anything from an acid scratch test to an electronic reading. The method matters, because destructive tests leave marks and imprecise ones justify lower offers.
See it in use: Scrap gold guide
Bid-ask spread
The gap between what a dealer pays for gold (bid) and what the same dealer sells it for (ask). It is the dealer's working margin, and it exists on every product from a one-gram bar to a tube of Eagles.
A narrow spread is the single most honest signal a dealer gives you. Wide spreads hide in products that are hard to compare, which is why unusual sizes and collectible packaging tend to carry them.
See it in use: Premiums and spreads explained
Bullion
Gold valued for its metal content alone — bars, rounds, and the standard sovereign-mint coins. A bullion product's price tracks the spot market plus a premium; craftsmanship, age, and brand play almost no part.
The opposite of bullion in practice is jewelry, where making and design carry the retail price far above metal value and the resale market rarely honors the difference.
See it in use: Coin and bar values
Crown gold
The 22-karat alloy — 91.67 percent gold hardened with copper — that England introduced in 1526 for circulating coinage and that survives today in the American Gold Eagle and the Krugerrand.
A crown gold coin contains its full stated gold weight; the alloy metals are added on top. A one-ounce Eagle weighs about 1.09 troy ounces in total but still holds exactly one troy ounce of gold.
See it in use: American Gold Eagle value
Fineness
Purity expressed in parts per thousand — the system behind the small numbers stamped in jewelry: 417, 585, 750, 916, 999. A 585 stamp means 585 parts gold in 1,000, the same purity the karat scale calls 14K.
Most of the world marks fineness rather than karat, so imported pieces often carry only the number. The two scales convert directly: karat divided by 24, times 1,000.
See it in use: Karat value calculators
Four nines
Shorthand for .9999 fine — 99.99 percent pure gold, one step beyond the .999 that already counts as 24K. The Canadian Maple Leaf made four nines its trademark in 1982; several mints now match it.
The extra nine is a refining achievement more than a value difference. At melt, the price gap between .999 and .9999 on the same weight of gold is measured in cents.
See it in use: Canadian Maple Leaf value
Gold-filled
A base-metal core wrapped in a bonded sheet of real karat gold, marked GF with a fraction such as 1/20 12K. By US rule the gold layer must be at least 5 percent of the item's weight — thin, but real and recoverable.
Refiners buy gold-filled material by the pound at a steep discount. It is worth something; it is never worth karat-gold prices, whatever the surface looks like.
See it in use: Scrap gold guide
Gold-plated
An electroplated film of gold measured in microns — often fractions of a micron — over base metal. Common stamps: GP, GEP, HGE.
The gold is genuine but the quantity is negligible: recovering it costs more than it yields at household scale, which is why buyers refuse plated items or pay scrap-metal, not gold, prices.
See it in use: Scrap gold guide
Hallmark
The set of small stamps inside a piece recording its fineness and, in many countries, its maker and assay office. In the US the trade mostly stamps karat plus a registered maker's mark.
A hallmark is a claim, not a guarantee — worn, counterfeit, and over-optimistic stamps all exist, which is why serious buyers test anyway. But reading the marks first tells you what the test should confirm.
See it in use: How to sell gold step by step
Karat
The 24-part purity scale for gold alloys: 24K is pure, 18K is 18 parts gold in 24 (75 percent), 14K is 58.3 percent, 10K is 41.7 percent. Spelled carat outside North America.
Karat sets the metal value of jewelry directly — a gram of 14K contains a little more than half the gold of a gram of 24K, and every honest quote starts from that arithmetic.
See it in use: 14K value calculator
Legal tender
A face value printed on a bullion coin by the issuing state — fifty dollars on a one-ounce Eagle, five pounds on a large Britannia. It makes the coin official currency in law.
In practice the face value is ceremonial: the metal is worth many times more, and the coin trades on weight and purity. Its practical effects are legal ones — around counterfeiting statutes and, in some places, tax treatment.
See it in use: Britannia coin value
Melt value
What the pure gold in an item is worth at the current spot price: weight, times purity, times the per-gram price. It is the anchor number for every scrap quote, whether or not anything is ever melted.
No buyer pays full melt — refining, testing, and margin all come out of it. The percentage of melt a buyer offers is the real comparison figure between offers.
See it in use: Scrap value calculator
Pennyweight (dwt)
One twentieth of a troy ounce — 1.5552 grams. US gold buyers, especially pawn shops, often quote in pennyweight where most of the world quotes in grams.
The unit is legitimate; the confusion it creates is not always accidental. A price per pennyweight sounds larger than the same price per gram, so convert every quote to one unit before comparing.
See it in use: Gold price per pennyweight
Plumb gold
A KP stamp — 14KP, 18KP — meaning the karat claim is exact ("plumb"), from decades when US law tolerated alloys running under their stamp. Not, as often assumed, plated.
Since the tolerance rules tightened, the P adds nothing legally; it survives on older pieces. A 14KP ring is simply a 14K ring and is valued as one.
See it in use: 14K value calculator
Premium
The amount above melt value that a gold product costs to buy: minting, distribution, and dealer margin. A one-ounce coin at 5 percent over spot carries a 5 percent premium.
Premiums move with retail demand and product scarcity, sometimes violently. On the selling side the mirror concept is the discount below melt a buyer applies.
See it in use: Premiums and spreads explained
Scrap gold
Any gold sold for metal content rather than as a finished object — broken chains, single earrings, dated jewelry, dental gold. The category is about intent, not condition; a flawless ring sold to a refiner is scrap.
Scrap pricing is pure arithmetic: weight, purity, spot, minus the buyer's cut. Sentiment, brand, and original retail price play no part, which surprises sellers more than anything else at the counter.
See it in use: Scrap value calculator
Spot price
The live benchmark price for one troy ounce of gold delivered now, set by the global dealing and futures markets. It is the number every chart, quote, and calculator on this site starts from.
Nobody buys or sells physical gold exactly at spot — premiums sit above it, buyer discounts below — but every honest price is expressed relative to it.
See it in use: Live gold price
Troy ounce
The precious-metals ounce: 31.1034768 grams, about 10 percent heavier than the kitchen (avoirdupois) ounce at 28.35 grams. Every quoted gold price per ounce means troy.
Weighing gold on a kitchen scale in regular ounces and multiplying by the spot price overstates the metal by that same 10 percent — one of the most common self-inflicted valuation errors.
See it in use: Gold price per troy ounce
Vermeil
Gold plating over a sterling silver base rather than base metal. US rules require at least 2.5 microns of gold over silver of sterling standard for the label.
Vermeil outranks ordinary plating in quality and durability, but at a buyer's counter its economics are silver economics: the gold layer is too thin to pay for, the sterling underneath is what gets weighed.
See it in use: Scrap gold guide
XRF testing
X-ray fluorescence — a desktop or handheld gun that reads an alloy's composition in seconds without damaging the piece. Serious buyers and refiners use it as the standard non-destructive test.
XRF reads the surface, so heavy plating can fool a careless operator; filing a small window or testing multiple faces defeats that. If a buyer XRF-tests in front of you and shows the screen, that is a good sign about the whole transaction.
See it in use: How to sell gold step by step
Form 1099-B
The IRS broker form some precious-metals dealers must file when buying specific bulk bullion products — certain quantities of specific coins and bars, per the reportable-items list.
Most jewelry and small-lot scrap sales trigger no dealer paperwork at all. That is not a tax exemption: gains on gold you sell remain taxable whether or not a form was filed.
See it in use: Reporting rules when selling gold