Guide
Troy ounces, grams, and pennyweight.
Gold and silver are priced by the troy ounce, jewelers often weigh in pennyweight, and most scales show grams. Here's how they fit together, and why mixing them up costs sellers money.
Updated October 28, 2026 · Prices as of November 2, 2026, 6:20 p.m. Pacific
The conversions
| Unit | Grams | Also equals |
|---|---|---|
| 1 troy ounce (ozt) | 31.1035 g | 20 dwt; 480 grains |
| 1 pennyweight (dwt) | 1.5552 g | 1/20 ozt; 24 grains |
| 1 gram | 1 g | 0.643 dwt; 0.0322 ozt |
| 1 regular (avoirdupois) ounce | 28.3495 g | 0.9115 ozt |
| 1 kilogram | 1,000 g | 32.15 ozt |
| 1 troy pound | 373.24 g | 12 ozt |
A troy ounce is heavier than a regular ounce
The ounce on a kitchen or postal scale is the avoirdupois ounce, 28.35 grams. The troy ounce used for gold and silver is 31.10 grams, about 10% more. So 10 ounces of gold on a kitchen scale is only about 9.1 troy ounces. A troy pound, oddly, is lighter than a regular pound: 12 troy ounces against 16 regular ones. See troy ounce vs ounce for where the troy ounce comes from.
The pennyweight trick
Jewelers and some gold buyers weigh in pennyweight (dwt). A pennyweight is 1.555 grams, so a price per pennyweight is about 55% higher than the same price per gram. Palm Beach County's consumer affairs office warns about buyers who weigh your gold in pennyweight and pay you as if it were grams. Always ask what unit a price is quoted in.
Right now gold is at $3,942 per troy ounce, and we pay $69.46/g for 14K gold.
Scrap prices are per gram of metal after melting, not per gram of what you send. Stones are removed, and dirt, glue, springs, and anything else that isn't gold or silver burn off or separate out, so the weight paid is usually less than your scale shows.
Check the scale
- Watch your gold being weighed, and check the scale reads zero first.
- Ask what unit the scale is set to: grams, pennyweight, or troy ounces.
- Have each karat weighed separately, since 10K and 18K are worth very different amounts per gram.
- In California, a buyer's scale should be sealed by a county weights and measures official, and you can ask for a weighmaster's certificate.
For what offers buyers have made in consumer tests, see how much gold buyers pay.
Bar guides: Gold bars · Silver bars · Troy ounces, grams, and pennyweight
We pay more than pawn shops, jewelers, and mail-in gold kits: in Consumer Reports' tests, jewelers and pawn shops paid 36% to 71% of melt value, and mail-in kits 11% to about 29%. We pay 94% for scrap gold. Who pays the most?
Your gold
Weigh it, then see what it's worth.
Enter weights in grams in our estimate calculator, or send photos for a free written estimate.