UK Gold Calculator — Value in Pounds
Weight in, carat in, value out — today's melt value in pounds for any piece, plus the payout band a realistic buyer offer falls into. Rates come from the live world spot price and the dated ECB exchange rate shown below the result.
Converted at US$1 = £0.7432 (ECB reference rates, 2026-09-16). Spot itself is recorded from a live market feed every fifteen minutes. Melt value is the metal content, not an offer — real buyers pay a percentage of it.
Reading the result honestly
Melt value is what the gold in your piece is worth as metal — not what a buyer will hand you. Refining, testing and margin come out of every offer, which is why the calculator also shows a 65–80% band: the range serious walk-in offers tend to occupy for ordinary scrap lots. An offer under two-thirds of melt deserves a second opinion; an offer near melt usually means a coin or piece worth more than its scrap — check coin and bar values before melting anything collectable.
Weighing at home
A kitchen scale reading grams is enough. Weigh carat groups separately — a 9ct chain and an 18ct ring averaged together produces a number that is wrong for both. If a piece carries stones, remember the scale is weighing them too; buyers deduct stone weight, and so should your estimate. The hallmark tells you which carat to select — 375 is 9ct, 585 is 14ct, 750 is 18ct, 916 is 22ct — and unmarked pieces should be priced pessimistically until tested, as covered in the selling guide.
Questions people ask in the UK
- Is this what a UK gold buyer will actually pay?
- No calculator can promise an offer. This one gives you the melt value and the realistic band around it, which is the preparation that measurably moves offers: buyers quote differently to sellers who arrive knowing their number.
- My piece has no hallmark — which carat do I choose?
- Price it at the lowest plausible carat until it is tested — 9ct for most unmarked British-bought jewellery. A buyer will test it anyway; your conservative estimate just protects you from disappointment rather than from the metal's real value.
- Does VAT change what I get when selling?
- Selling your own jewellery or coins as a private individual is not a VAT transaction — the figures that matter are melt value and the buyer's percentage of it. VAT matters on the buying side, where investment gold is exempt under HMRC rules and jewellery is not.