What is the weight of my jewellery ?
To know how much money can be obtained from selling one's jewellery pieces it is necessary to weigh them. Indeed, it is rarely the item in itself that is interesting for the gold buyer but the gold they contain. With the exceptio of very specific cases of jewelery of major brands or with artistic value (check out our article here : How to sell silver jewellery? but the main idea remains the same with gold jewelry).
Jewellery average weight by type of item
To have a rough idea of the weight of your own jewellery pieces, here is the average weight of the different types of jewellery items:
| Jewellery item | Average weight |
|---|---|
| Small ring / Women's ring | 2 grams |
| Big ring/ Men's ring | 4 grams |
| Chevalière | 8 grammes |
| Thin mesh bracelet | 5 grams |
| Medium and rigid mesh bracelet | 15 grams |
| Big mesh bracelet | 20 grams |
| Thin mesh necklace | 10 grams |
| Thick mesh necklace | 30 grams |
| Small pendant | 1 gram |
| Big pendant | 4 grams |
| Pair of earrings | 6 grams |
Weigh it at home
If you have a food scale at home, you can use it to weigh your jewellery.
Here is an example of a food scale and a link to a store offering the sale:
Be careful though because the accuracy is not necessarily great. With the above scale, you can weigh up to 5 kg. The scales dedicated to the weighing of jewellery have a much lower weigh limit but a much higher precision. In consequence if you weigh 18.3g and that the gold buyer weighs 17.9g, well, it must be put on the account of the lack of precision of the balance.
Go to a post office
Another solution is to put your items in an envelope (for more privacy) to weigh on the scales at your nearest post office. The accuracy is usually better than a food scale and you are sure that the scale is not rigged.
However, this requires an additional trip to a post office which is not necessary.
Directly checking with a scrap gold buyer or a jeweller
This is the simplest solution. And then, if you have decided to sell your jewellery, it seems pretty coherent.
To be certain that the profesional does not tell you any nonsense, you are free to visit a second one.
The risk of this approach is that once you enter the shop, you may not have the will to refuse the offer he will make even if there is a better one somewhere else (whether you know it or not).
Check out our articles about Scrap gold and selling jewellery :
Red gold, green gold, white gold... : All about colored gold
UK Gold, Silver and platinum hallmarks
Frequently asked questions
Should I sell online or at a shop ?
How to identify the metal and purity of a piece of jewellery ?