Calculate Precious Metal Weights

Just how does one calculate the weight of precious metals? With terms like karats, grains, and troy ounces thrown around, it can easily confuse the lay person. This article will clarify the subject so that you can easily understand how these values are determined. It is important to understand these terms if you plan on converting your gold or jewelry into cash.

In order to wrap your head around all of these various methods of measurements, you must begin at the most basic level. In this case, we start out with grains. A grain is typically the smallest unit of measurement used in the precious metal business. The grain takes its name from the fact that in ages past, grains of certain cereal crops, such as wheat or barleycorn, were used as a standard unit of measurement. People traded goods based on their weight in grains of particular crops. A grain by today’s standard is 64.79891 milligrams.

If you live in the United States, you use the old standard system of measurement which is based on a sixteen ounce pound. This system comes to us from the British, although interestingly, the American and English versions of these units now vary. The ounces used in this system of measurement are called avoirdupois ounces. This is an Old French term that means “goods of weight” and stems from its use in measuring trade goods. The avoirdupois ounce consists of 437.5 grains.

The troy ounce is composed of 480 grains, and as such is slightly heavier than the standard ounce. This is the unit of measurement used in measuring precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum, as well as in other systems such as archery and ballistics. The troy ounce derives its name from ancient Rome where it was used in the monetary system to balance trade. This system was based on the use of bronze bars that were cast at a predetermined weight. There are 12 troy ounces in one troy pound; this corresponds to slightly less than a standard pound. A pound using 16 avoirdupois ounces would be equal to 14.5833 troy ounces.

Other Gold Measurements

Carats are used to measure the weight of precious gems or stones such as diamonds. Four grains equal one carat. A carat has been determined to equal one fifth, or 0.2, of a gram since 1914 in order to standardize the system. A karat can also refer to the purity of gold, in which case it does not measure weight. 24 karat gold would be pure gold. Most gold jewelry is not 24 karats, however, as this would be too soft and would easily dent or scratch. Fourteen karat is the most typical purity level of gold to ensure that it is durable enough to withstand day to day wear and tear. It is important to note that when determining the weight of gold in any particular piece of jewelry, that only the gold contained within it is measured, not the entire weight of the piece itself as this will also contain metals such as copper and silver in the case of gold, and other metals for various types of jewelry.

Just how does one go about measuring the level of gold (or any precious metal) in a piece of jewelry? There are several methods that can be used. The fastest and easiest method is electronic testing. Electronic testing consists of attaching a measuring device to the jewelry and placing a few drops of testing solution onto the metal. Once this solution reacts to the metal, the measuring device rapidly and very accurately determines the purity of the gold contained within the metal (measured in karats). If for some reason this number differs from the purity level assumed of the piece of jewelry, a secondary test can be performed, the scratch test.

A scratch test is the most common form of purity testing used around the world. It consists of using a number of needles verified as containing a particular amount of gold and comparing the results of an acid test to those of the piece in question. Based upon the speed at which a particular piece of jewelry dissolves, compared to that of the needle with a known quantity of gold, the purity of the piece in question can be determined to within a 4% margin of error.

If the scratch test proves to be insufficient, then an x-ray fluorescence scan can be performed. This test utilizes a very sophisticated, as well as highly expensive, piece of equipment that measures the intensity of the gold x-rays generated by the wavelength dispersion analysis. A report is generated upon completion of the test outlining the content of all metals contained within the piece of jewelry to an extremely high degree of accuracy.

In order to distil the gold from the piece of jewelry and determine its weight, the alloy that composes the jewelry must be refined. This is essential in determining the weight of the precious metal in question. In order to recycle it and turn it into bullion, it must be extracted from the alloy it is contained within. In order to do this accurately and safely, a very sophisticated system of breaking down and collecting the precious metal is used. For gold, the metal is diluted in acids to separate it from the copper and silver it is usually mixed with. By doing this, the exact number of troy ounces of gold can be removed and then converted into gold bullion which can be sold.

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