Gold Purity Chart: Every Karat, Fineness Mark and Percentage
By Sukie Gao · June 6, 2026A gold purity chart answers the question every seller, buyer, and inheritor of jewelry eventually asks: how much of this thing is actually gold? The answer is almost never "all of it." Pure gold is too soft for daily wear, so jewelers cut it with copper, silver, zinc, and nickel — and the karat stamp on the clasp tells you the recipe. The catch is that the stamp comes in two competing languages: karats (24K, 18K, 14K) and millesimal fineness (999, 750, 585), and most people only half-speak one of them. The chart below translates both into the number that matters — the percentage of gold by weight — and then into dollars per gram at a recent price. Print it, screenshot it, or bookmark it. Once you can read a purity mark cold, you stop being the person at the counter taking the buyer's word for it, and you can run any piece through a gold calculator yourself in about thirty seconds.
The Chart: Every Karat at a Glance
Here is the master table. Melt values assume a spot price of $4,400 per troy ounce, which works out to $141.46 per gram of pure gold ($4,400 ÷ 31.103 g). Recent prices have run near $4,300–$4,500 per troy ounce, so treat the dollar column as a current ballpark, not gospel — purity percentages never change, but spot moves every trading day.
| Karat | Fineness mark | % gold | Typical use | Melt value per gram* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24K | 999 | 99.9% | Bullion bars, investment coins, some East Asian jewelry | $141.32 |
| 22K | 917 (916 in India) | 91.67% | South Asian and Middle Eastern jewelry, American Gold Eagles | $129.68 |
| 21K | 875 | 87.5% | Gulf-state and broader Middle Eastern jewelry | $123.78 |
| 18K | 750 | 75% | Fine European jewelry, luxury watches, designer pieces | $106.10 |
| 14K | 585 (occasionally 583) | 58.33% | The default for American jewelry | $82.51 |
| 10K | 417 | 41.67% | Budget US jewelry; the legal minimum to be sold as "gold" in America | $58.95 |
| 9K | 375 | 37.5% | Everyday jewelry in the UK, Ireland, and Australia | $53.05 |
*At an assumed $4,400/troy oz spot price.
Reading it is simple: find the stamp on your piece in column one or two, and the percentage tells you what fraction of the item's weight is actual gold. A 20-gram bangle stamped 22K contains 18.33 g of pure gold and melts for about $2,593.60 at our assumed price. A 20-gram chain stamped 14K — identical weight, also legitimately "gold" — contains 11.67 g of pure gold and melts for about $1,650.20. That is a $943 difference between two pieces a kitchen scale says are the same. The stamp is doing all the work, which is exactly why you should learn to read it before anyone makes you an offer.
Karats and Millesimal Fineness: Two Systems, One Answer
The karat system divides purity into 24 parts. The word traces back to the carob seed, which ancient traders used as a counterweight on balance scales, and the 24-part convention is genuinely old — it predates every government currently stamping gold. A karat number is just a fraction with 24 on the bottom: 18K means 18/24 gold, which is 75%. 14K means 14/24, or 58.33%. Do the division and the mystery evaporates.
Millesimal fineness is the metric world's cleaner answer: parts per thousand. A 750 stamp means 750 parts gold per 1,000 — the same 75% as 18K, written by an engineer instead of a medieval goldsmith. Most of Europe stamps fineness; America stamps karats; plenty of modern jewelry carries both.
One quirk worth knowing: 14K math gives 583.3 parts per thousand, and older European pieces are often stamped 583. American manufacturers later settled on 585 — alloying very slightly rich so a stamped piece would never assay under the mark. Both numbers mean 14K. Similarly, India's BIS hallmarking system stamps 22K gold as 916 rather than 917. If you see a three-digit number in the 370–999 range on jewelry, it is almost certainly a fineness mark, and the gold purity chart above converts it.
The one number the stamp never tells you is the day's price. Purity is fixed; spot is not. The World Gold Council publishes market data at gold.org if you want the long view on where prices have been.
Why the World Can't Agree on a Karat
Walk into a jewelry store in Mumbai, Dubai, Paris, and Dallas and you will be shown four different defaults — and each market considers its own choice obviously correct.
South Asia and the Middle East run on 22K and 21K. There, jewelry doubles as family savings: a wedding set is a store of value first and an ornament second, so buyers want maximum gold content and tolerate the softness. The 916 stamp is so standard in India that it functions as a synonym for 22K. Even the US Mint follows this logic for one product — the American Gold Eagle is struck at 91.67% gold (22K) for durability, per the US Mint's own specifications, while its Buffalo coin is 24K for purists.
Europe settled on 18K (750) as the fine-jewelry standard — enough purity for rich color, enough alloy for a secure stone setting. Most luxury watch cases and designer pieces worldwide follow it; our 18K gold calculator handles that math.
America is 14K country. It is durable, affordable, and still well past half gold — the workhorse karat of US chains, rings, and class jewelry, priced out in detail on the 14K gold calculator.
The UK, Ireland, and Australia go lower still: 9K is a fully legal and extremely common everyday standard there, while in the United States anything under 10K cannot legally be sold as gold at all. Same metal, different cultures, different floors. None of this changes the math — it only changes what stamp you are most likely to find on an inherited piece, depending on where it was bought.
Purer Isn't Tougher: The Trade-Off
People assume higher karat means better jewelry. Higher karat means more valuable jewelry; it usually means weaker jewelry. Pure gold is soft enough to scratch with a coin. Every step down the chart trades gold content for hardness, scratch resistance, and structural strength — which is why the regions that wear 22K daily also employ a lot of goldsmiths who repair bent bangles.
A few practical consequences of the trade-off:
- Rings and bracelets take the most abuse. For daily-wear pieces, 14K or 18K hold shape and finish far better than 22K. Prongs holding stones are almost never made above 18K for exactly this reason.
- Earrings and pendants barely touch anything, so high-karat metal is a fine choice there.
- Color shifts with alloy. 24K is intensely yellow; 14K is noticeably paler; rose gold gets its blush from extra copper, white gold from nickel or palladium plus (usually) rhodium plating. The karat number describes gold content only — an 18K rose and an 18K yellow piece are worth identical money per gram.
- Skin sensitivity is an alloy issue, not a gold issue. Nickel in some white gold alloys is the usual culprit.
For a seller, the takeaway is blunt: durability is the wearer's concern, but value is purely the chart's left three columns. Melt buyers do not pay extra because a 10K ring survived thirty years of yard work.
Marks That Are Not Purity Marks
The most expensive mistake in this topic is reading a non-purity stamp as a purity stamp. Several common marks contain a karat number and describe an item that is almost entirely not gold:
- GF (gold-filled) — e.g., "1/20 14K GF." A thin sheet of real 14K gold mechanically bonded over brass. The gold layer is 1/20th of the item's weight; total gold content is around 2–3% by weight. Worth a small fraction of solid gold.
- GP, GEP (gold-plated / gold electroplate) and HGE (heavy gold electroplate) — microscopically thin plating. Gold content is effectively zero for melt purposes.
- RGP (rolled gold plate) — gold-filled's thinner cousin. Same verdict.
- Vermeil — gold plating over sterling silver. Pretty, legitimate, and worth silver money, not gold money.
- 925 or "Sterling" — that is a silver fineness mark (92.5% silver). Gold-tone jewelry stamped 925 is gold-plated silver, full stop.
A buyer who "reads" your 1/20 14K GF chain as 14K does not exist; one who lets *you* believe it is 14K while paying you scrap-brass money absolutely does. The full decoding guide lives at gold hallmarks, and since stamps can be counterfeited outright, it pays to know how to test gold at home so the metal can confirm what the mark claims. A stamp is a label; a gold purity chart only works when the label is honest.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best karat for everyday jewelry?
For pieces that take contact — rings, bracelets, watch cases — 14K is the practical sweet spot in the US: 58.33% gold, hard enough to keep its shape and hold stones securely. 18K trades a little durability for richer color and more value per gram. 22K and above are best reserved for low-contact pieces like pendants and earrings, or for jewelry bought primarily as a store of value, as is common in South Asia and the Middle East.
What does a 585 stamp mean?
585 is the millesimal fineness mark for 14K gold: 585 parts gold per 1,000, or 58.33% (manufacturers alloy a hair above the mathematical 583.3 so pieces never assay under the stamp). You'll also occasionally see 583 on older European jewelry — it means the same thing. Either way, the piece is solid 14K gold, worth about $82.51 per gram with spot gold at an assumed $4,400 per troy ounce.
Is 10K gold real gold?
Yes. 10K is 41.67% gold — less than half by weight, but legally and genuinely gold, and it is the minimum purity that can be marketed as gold in the United States. It is the most durable and most affordable common karat, which is why budget rings and class rings use it. Its melt value scales with that 41.67%: a gram of 10K carries about $58.95 of gold at an assumed $4,400/oz spot price.
What is the difference between a karat and a carat?
Karat (K) measures gold purity in 24ths — the subject of this chart. Carat (ct) measures gemstone weight, where one carat equals 0.2 grams. They share an etymology (the carob seed used as an ancient counterweight) but describe completely different things. A "1 carat 14 karat ring" is a 14K gold ring set with a 0.2 g diamond. The UK spells both "carat," which keeps the confusion alive.
What does a 916 stamp on gold mean?
916 is 22K gold — 91.67% pure — as stamped under India's BIS hallmarking system, which rounds the fineness down rather than up to 917. Indian wedding and investment jewelry is overwhelmingly 916, often accompanied by a BIS triangle logo, an assay center mark, and a jeweler's identification mark. For valuation purposes, treat 916 and 917 identically: multiply the piece's weight by 0.9167 to get its pure gold content.
Why is 22K gold standard in India and the Middle East?
Because jewelry there functions as portable family savings as much as adornment. Higher purity means the piece tracks the gold price more closely and is easier to resell or remelt at predictable value — liquidity matters more than scratch resistance. Cultural tradition, wedding-gift customs, and well-established 916/22K hallmarking ecosystems reinforce the standard. Softer metal is accepted as the cost of holding more gold on the wrist.
Does gold purity degrade or change over time?
No. Purity is the alloy's recipe, fixed when the metal was mixed — a 14K ring is 58.33% gold on day one and on day ten thousand. Gold itself doesn't tarnish or oxidize. What does change: plating wears off (relevant for vermeil and white gold's rhodium coat), surfaces scratch, and the piece slowly loses tiny amounts of weight to abrasion. Value changes come from weight loss and spot-price movement, never from the percentage drifting.
Are white gold and rose gold on the same purity chart?
Yes — color says nothing about purity. An 18K white gold ring, an 18K rose gold ring, and an 18K yellow gold ring are each 75% gold and worth the same per gram at melt. The difference is the other 25%: nickel or palladium whitens, extra copper blushes. One caution: white gold is usually rhodium-plated, so a bright white surface can hide the stamp's true story — the karat mark, not the color, is what a refiner pays on.
How do I know if the purity stamp on my gold is genuine?
You don't — not from the stamp alone, because counterfeiters stamp fakes with cheerful confidence. Treat the mark as a claim to verify: a magnet test and density check catch crude fakes free, a $20 acid kit verifies karat at home, and most coin or bullion dealers will run a non-destructive XRF scan in seconds, typically free if you're a potential seller. If the metal and the mark disagree, believe the metal.
What karat are gold coins like the American Eagle?
The American Gold Eagle is 22K (91.67% gold), alloyed with silver and copper for durability — but it still contains a full troy ounce of pure gold in the one-ounce size, so it weighs more than an ounce. The American Buffalo, Canadian Maple Leaf, and most modern world bullion coins are 24K (999 or 9999 fine). Older circulating gold coins, like pre-1933 US pieces, are typically 90% gold — close to 21.6K.
Written by Sukie Gao
Sukie Gao holds a master's degree from a business school, where she picked up the markets-and-pricing toolkit she now applies to the consumer gold trade. She created Gold Calculator Hub to give people an independent, data-driven way to find out what their gold is really worth.
Published June 6, 2026