How much is my gold jewellery worth?

Big Bullion · Published 12 October 2026 · Updated 12 October 2026 · 6 min read

Reviewed by the Big Bullion team, 12 October 2026

Your gold jewellery is worth the weight of pure gold inside it, multiplied by the rate we're paying for that karat today. Gemstones, workmanship and brand add nothing to that figure here, because we're buying the metal, not the piece.

The short version

We weigh the piece, test what karat the gold actually is, and pay the weighed weight at that karat's rate for the day. That's the whole calculation. There's no separate charge for a ring versus a chain, and no premium for a recognisable brand, because what we're paying for is the gold itself.

If you've got a mixed batch — some gold, some silver, several karats — each part is weighed and priced on its own. Gold and silver are never added together into one figure, and a piece that doesn't match any karat we have a rate for is left out of the total rather than guessed at, with the piece named so you know which one and why.

What do 999, 916, 750 and 585 actually mean?

Those numbers describe how pure the gold is, out of 1,000 parts. 999 gold is 99.9% pure, close to as pure as gold gets, and is sometimes called 24 karat. 916 gold is 91.6% pure — 22 karat — and is the purity you'll most often see sold as jewellery in Singapore and Malaysia. 750 gold is 75.0% pure, or 18 karat, a common choice for rings set with stones because the alloy makes it harder-wearing. 585 gold is 58.5% pure, or 14 karat, lighter in colour and in gold content than the others.

A stamp carrying one of those numbers tells you what the piece was made as. It isn't a test in its own right — stamps can be worn, wrong, or in rare cases faked — which is why we never read a number off a piece and price it on that basis alone.

How we actually test it

Every piece is weighed and put through our XRF machine, in front of you, which reads what the metal is rather than what a stamp claims. Weighing and testing is free, there's no minimum amount, and it doesn't commit you to selling.

Why don't the stones or the workmanship count?

Because the price is built from the weighed weight of the gold and nothing else. A diamond, a cultured pearl or a cubic zirconia isn't gold, so it can't add to that weighed figure, however it's set. The same goes for workmanship — a hand-finished setting or a well-known maker's name might matter to a buyer of the piece as jewellery, but we're not reselling it as jewellery. It goes to a refiner to be recovered as metal, so what the piece looked like stops mattering the moment it's tested.

What you need to bring

• The jewellery itself, any amount, broken or whole.
• Your NRIC or passport — we check identity on every buy-back because we're licensed and regulated by the Ministry of Law as a precious metals dealer, licence PS20250000846.
• A certificate or assay card if you still have one, though most jewellery doesn't come with one and that's fine.

When the money actually arrives

Nothing is priced until you've confirmed the weighed and tested figures, so what you agree to at the counter is what you're paid on. Under S$20,000 we pay by PayNow or bank transfer the same day; S$20,000 and above takes two to five business days, always to an account in your own name.

You don't have to take the money. If you'd rather put the value towards a gold or silver bar or coin, that's a trade-in, and we cover how the two options compare in the next article.

We sell physical gold and silver. Nothing on this page is financial advice.