<p>When they melt down, they have to extract the alloys. You shouldn’t actually get the “market price” of gold for a piece of jewelry that weighs x.</p>
<p>I have been told that 14k is about 60% pure gold but I don’t know if that’s accurate. I was also told that a jeweler will lose about 10% when he melts it for recasting.</p>
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<p>True, tcb, you just divide the K number by 24, so 14/24=0.58 ~ 58%.</p>
<p>NJres, your calculation seems right. The weight was the actual grams. The jeweler threw it on a scale right in front of me. I had a number of pieces and felt I got more than expected for some and less than expected for others. Overall it seemed to come out to a reasonable $.</p>