With the economy being in disarray at the moment, many people are looking for extra ways to bring some money to the table. If you have any gold wristwatches that may have been passed down through generations, you may be wondering exactly how much they are worth. This article will go into the detail of describing how to work out the scrap value of the gold. One disclaimer to mention before we go any further however, and that is that you should not underestimate the sentimental value of such a gold watch – if it has really been passed down through generations then perhaps it would be a better idea to retain its legacy and hang on to the watch for now.
Anyway, without further ado, here is how you can work out the value of your gold wristwatch –
Firstly, you should weight your watch. Obviously the heavier the watch the more it is worth when melted down. Find out the weight of the gold in grams.
Next you need to find out the purity of the gold watch – this will be marked on the case somewhere, so have a quick look for it. 24 carat gold is known as “pure gold”, 18 carat is three quarters gold, 14 carat is half as pure as 24 carat gold, and so on.
For your gold wristwatch, use this rule of thumb to get a number for our gold equation:
9ct=375, 14ct = 583, 18ct =750, 22 ct= 916, 24 ct=999
Now take the weight of the gold watch and multiply it by the number above (i.e. 999 x Weight of gold wristwatch) to get the G1 value.
Finally we need to find out the most up to date price of gold, one such site you can find it out is at http://www.goldalert.com , use this to get the current price of gold, G2.
Now for our equation, G1 x ( G2 /31.1 / 999) = the price of you gold wristwatch when melted down!
Two caveats:
Firstly, you should remember that at a pawn shop a gold buyer will only pay up to 85% of this value, since he has to make money somewhere.
Secondly, this raw calculation does not take into account the make or model of the gold watch, just its raw value. If you have a Rolex gold wristwatch, or a Seiko, for example, you may be able to get more from a collector of these items.
