14K Gold Calculator
Price a 14K ring, chain or bracelet from its weight. The karat stays at 14. You set the weight, the unit, the quantity and the gold price.
14K gold value
1 troy oz = 31.1 g · 1 oz = 28.35 g · 1 dwt = 1.555 g
14K · 58.3%
Priced as 14 ÷ 24 (58.3%). The 585 stamp is 58.5%.
Common 14K weights
| Weight | Pure gold | Melt value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 g | 0.583 g | — |
| 5 g | 2.917 g | — |
| 10 g | 5.833 g | — |
| 20 g | 11.667 g | — |
| 50 g | 29.167 g | — |
| 1 oz | 16.537 g | — |
One piece at 14K, using the price above. 1 oz is the regular ounce (28.35 g), not a troy ounce (31.103 g).
Selling? See what buyers may pay for scrap gold.
Related karats
On this page
14K gold is 14 ÷ 24, which is 58.3% gold. Jewelers usually stamp it 585, and 585 is 58.5%. This page prices 14K as 14 ÷ 24.
14K is the everyday karat in American jewelry
Walk into a US jewelry shop and most of the solid gold on the trays is 14K. Wedding bands, chain necklaces, hoop earrings, bracelets and a lot of engagement settings are made in it. The reason is practical. At 58.3% gold, the other 41.7% can be chosen to make the metal harder than 18K without giving up a clearly gold color. A band that is worn every day needs that hardness. A pendant that sits in a box does not, which is why higher karats show up more often on pieces that are not knocked about.
The alloy is not one recipe. Yellow 14K uses copper and silver to keep a warm color. Rose 14K leans harder on copper, so it looks pink, and it is still 58.3% gold. White 14K replaces some of that copper with nickel, palladium or other white metals, then often gets a rhodium plating so the surface looks bright. The plating is a film. It is not a reason to add weight, and it is not a reason to call the piece a different karat. When the rhodium wears through, the 14K underneath looks slightly warmer. Replating changes the look, not the melt value.
A heavy 10K class ring can hold more pure gold than a light 14K band. The stamp is the fraction. The scale is the amount. This page holds the fraction at 14 ÷ 24.
Color, wear and what the alloy is doing
Pure gold is soft. Fourteen-karat gold is gold with enough other metal to hold a prong, a clasp and a shank. That is why a 14K solitaire can keep a small stone safer than a 22K setting of the same thinness, and why a 14K Cuban link keeps its shape better than a 22K link of the same gauge. The cost of that toughness is gold you do not have. Every gram of 14K jewelry is only 58.3% gold. The rest is paid for when you buy the piece at retail, and it is not paid for when you sell the piece as scrap.
Scratches on 14K are normal. They do not reduce melt value, because a buyer melts the metal. A deep cut that has been repaired with solder can reduce it, because solder is not 14K and it adds non-gold weight if it is still on the piece. Stones do the same thing. A diamond, a sapphire or even a cheap glass stone is not gold. Weigh the item without the stones if you can, or expect a buyer to pop them out before the scale. This calculator does not subtract a stone weight for you.
Hollow chains look thick and weigh little. The stamp still tells the truth about the alloy. If a rope chain weighs 4 grams, give the calculator 4 grams.
How to tell that a piece is actually 14K
Look in the places a stamp survives wear: inside a ring, on the tongue of a bracelet clasp, on the spring ring or lobster clasp of a chain, and on the bail of a pendant. You want “14K”, “14kt”, or the fineness number 585. A maker’s logo next to the number is the manufacturer, not a second purity. If two different karat numbers appear, do not average them. The piece may be two parts, or one of the marks may be a plating claim.
Marks that mean “not solid 14K” are easy to miss because they sit beside a 14K. GP, GEP, HGE and RGP mean plated. GF means gold-filled. A fraction such as 1/20 14K GF means the gold layer is one twentieth of the weight of the item, and that layer is 14K, so the whole object is only a few percent gold. Pricing that object on this page as solid 14K is the most expensive mistake a seller can make. Those pieces need a gold-filled calculation, not this one.
An unstamped yellow ring is not “probably 14K”. Plated brass is yellow too. A magnet that does not stick only rules out some steels. It does not prove gold. Acid tests and XRF guns are how shops check an unmarked piece, and they can still be fooled by a thick plate if the test never reaches the core. If you are selling, let the buyer test it in front of you and watch the scale.
The 585 stamp and the 14K formula are not the same number. 585 ÷ 1,000 is 58.5%. 14 ÷ 24 is 58.3%. This page uses 14 ÷ 24, which is what the karat menu on the gold calculator uses as well. If you specifically want the stamp’s 58.5%, the gold karat calculator will turn 585 into a percent, and Custom purity on the gold calculator will price that percent. For a piece simply marked 14K, stay here.
A 5 gram wedding band, worked at the live price
A plain 14K wedding band for a smaller hand often lands around 4 to 6 grams. Wider comfort-fit bands land heavier, sometimes past 8 grams, and a band with a lot of stones can weigh more on the scale while holding less gold. Five grams is a fair example of a simple band with the stones off the scale. The sentence below uses that weight and the same price as the calculator, including a price you type in.
The worked example uses 5 gram 14K wedding band and fills in from the price in the calculator.
Read that as melt value, the gold’s raw worth. A jeweler, a pawn shop or a mail-in refiner will not hand over that full figure. They test, they refine, and they keep a margin. The scrap gold calculator is the page that turns melt into a typical payout range. Use this page first so you know the ceiling, then the scrap page so you know what a bid usually looks like under that ceiling.
Change the 5 grams if your band is different. The unit switch accepts grams, pennyweight, troy ounces and regular ounces. One pennyweight is 1.55517384 g. One troy ounce is 31.1034768 g. One regular ounce, the ounce on a kitchen scale, is 28.349523125 g. A troy ounce is the unit the gold price is quoted in, and it is heavier than the kitchen ounce. The hint under the switch is those three factors, rounded so they can be read at a glance.
Where 14K sits between 10K and 18K
10K gold is 41.7% gold. 18K gold is 75% gold. Hold the weight still and the pure gold moves in a straight line with the karat. A gram of 14K contains 14/10 as much gold as a gram of 10K, which is 40% more. It contains 14/18 as much gold as a gram of 18K, about 22% less. Those ratios are the whole comparison. The spot price cancels out of them, which is why a rising gold price makes every karat worth more and does not change which karat is richer.
| Karat | Percent | Stamp | Pure gold in 10 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10K | 41.7% | 417 | 4.17 g |
| 14K | 58.3% | 585 | 5.83 g |
| 18K | 75% | 750 | 7.50 g |
The 10 gram column is arithmetic, not a quote. 10 × 14 ÷ 24 is 5.83 grams of pure gold. Price that pure gold with the calculator if you want a dollar figure, and it will match the live quote rather than a number frozen into this article. Ten grams is also a common weight for a medium chain or a pair of heavier hoops, so the column is a useful checkpoint when you are holding a piece and you only want a sanity check.
Retail price is a different scale. A new 14K ring includes design, labor, the shop’s margin and sometimes the stone. Melt will look low next to the receipt. Melt is the gold. The receipt was the finished object. When the ring is sold as scrap, the market returns to the gold.
If the stamp is not 14K, do not force it onto this page. 22K and 24K are higher, 9ct is lower, and an odd fineness such as 500 belongs in the gold karat calculator before it is priced. The karat on this tool is locked so a 14K result cannot quietly become an 18K result while you are changing the weight.
14K Gold Calculator questions
Is 14K real gold?
Yes. 14K is 14 parts gold out of 24, which is 58.3% gold. The rest is alloy, usually copper, silver, zinc or nickel, chosen for color and hardness. It is the most common karat on everyday jewelry in the United States. A piece has to be stamped, or tested, before you can treat it as 14K. Color alone is not proof.
What does a 585 stamp mean on a 14K piece?
585 means 585 parts gold per thousand, or 58.5%. The formula 14 divided by 24 is 58.3%, which is 583 parts per thousand. Jewelers strike 585 as the commercial mark for 14 karat. This calculator prices 14K as 14/24. The difference is two tenths of a percent. On a 10 gram chain that is a small slice of the melt value, and it is worth knowing if you are comparing two quotes.
Is 14K a good karat for a ring worn every day?
It is the usual choice for wedding bands and everyday chains in the US because the alloy is harder than 18K or 22K. It still scratches, and a very thin band can bend, but it holds a prong and a shank better than purer gold. The tradeoff is gold content: the same weight of 18K holds more pure gold, and the same weight of 10K holds less.
Why are two 14K rings different colors?
The gold percentage is the same. The color comes from the other 41.7%. More copper makes rose gold. More silver, zinc or palladium, often with a rhodium plating, makes white gold. Yellow 14K sits between them. Rhodium wears off white gold and the surface looks warmer until it is replated. The plating is not extra gold you should add into the weight.
Is 14K GP or 14K GF the same as solid 14K?
No. GP, GEP, HGE and RGP mean the item is plated. GF means gold-filled, a layer of gold bonded to a base metal. A 1/20 14K gold-filled piece is only a few percent gold by weight. Pricing it on this page as solid 14K would overstate the gold by a wide margin. If the stamp includes GP or GF, do not use the solid-gold result.
How does 14K compare with 10K and 18K?
The same weight of 14K has 14/10 the pure gold of 10K, which is 40% more, and 14/18 the pure gold of 18K, which is about 22% less. Those ratios do not change when the spot price changes. The worked example applies them to one realistic piece so the dollar gap is visible at the current quote.