10K Gold Price Per Gram Today

Reviewed by the Gold Value Chart US Editorial Team · Updated October 28, 2026

$54.24 per gram of 10K gold

$84.35 per pennyweight · $1,687.00 per troy ounce of 10K

Gold spot $4,048.80/oz · updated October 28, 2026

Quick answer: A gram of 10K gold holds $54.24 of gold at the spot price of $4,048.80 per troy ounce, as of October 28, 2026. It is the smallest number on the karat ladder, because less than half of the piece is gold. What a scrap buyer pays for it is smaller still.

If you have ever picked up a high school class ring, a budget chain from a mall store, or a small pendant that felt sturdier than you expected, there is a good chance it was 10K. This is the lowest karat that may be sold as gold in the United States under the FTC's jewelry guidelines. Below it, a piece cannot be marketed as gold at all. That makes 10K the entry point of the whole scale, and the right place to see how much of a price really depends on purity.

Each row multiplies the weight by 41.7% and by the spot price per gram. Ten grams of 10K is worth $542.38 in gold content, and 50 grams comes to $2,711.92. For a weight not listed, use the gold value calculator.

Where the other 58.3% goes

Ten karat means ten parts gold out of twenty-four, so 41.7% of the piece is gold and the remaining 58.3% is something else. That something is an alloy: usually copper, silver, zinc or similar metals, with nickel or palladium added in white gold. Those metals are cheap by comparison, and they contribute almost no value to the melt figure.

So when you hold a 10K ring, more than half the weight in your hand is worth very little as metal. The gold is there, but it is diluted. That is the entire reason the table number is small, and it is why a heavy 10K item can feel substantial and still be worth far less than a lighter piece in a higher karat.

Reading the 417 stamp

The fineness mark for 10K is 417, which means 417 parts per thousand. You may also see 10K or 10KT. The stamp usually sits inside a band, on a clasp or near the joint of a pendant. Treat it as the maker's statement rather than a test result. Items marked with a company logo or the letters HGE or GP are plated or filled, and they hold only a thin layer of gold. Our gold purity chart explains these marks and how a dealer would check them.

The class ring example

Class rings are the classic 10K object, and they show how the gap between table value and payout plays out. Picture a ring that weighs 8 pennyweight, which is 8 dwt, or about 12.4 grams, including the stone and its setting. If the gold part is the full 8 dwt, its melt value at today's spot price is $674.80. In practice the stone and any non-gold fill come off that weight first, and a buyer then pays a share of melt, not all of it.

The trade commonly reports ranges: refiners with minimum lots at roughly 90 to 98 percent of melt, mail-in and online buyers at 70 to 90, local buyers and jewelers at 60 to 85, and pawn counters often lower. Those are reported ranges, not offers. Apply them to a small melt figure like this one and the payout can be modest, which is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon shopping it around.

Is 10K harder than higher karats?

Often, yes, though the effect depends on the exact alloy. Lower karat gold has more of the strengthening metals in it, so many jewelers describe 10K as more resistant to dents and bending than 14K or 18K. That is a general pattern, not a guarantee, and a thick, well-made 18K ring can outlast a thin 10K one. Higher alloy content can also bring a different trade-off, because some people react to nickel in white-gold alloys. If you have a metal sensitivity, ask the seller what the alloy contains.

Stepping up from 10K

Lining up one gram across the karats shows the same piece of arithmetic each time. A gram of 10K is $54.24. Move to 14K and it becomes $75.93, 18K brings $97.63, 22K gives $119.32 and 24K reaches $130.04. Going from 10K to 14K adds roughly 40 percent more gold per gram, which is a larger jump than the one between 14K and 18K when you look at it as a share of the starting value.

All five rows, plus weights up to 100 grams, sit together on the gold price per gram page. The live spot price behind them is shown on our main gold value chart.

The honest limits of this number

This page reports melt value, meaning weight times purity times spot. It does not account for a buyer's margin, for stones and fill that you cannot sell as gold, or for any collector interest in an old or signed piece. It also cannot confirm that your item is truly 10K. If a figure looks higher than any offer you receive, the gap is normal and usually explained by those costs.

Frequently asked questions

Data sources: Spot price via api.gold-api.com · COMEX futures (GC=F) via Yahoo Finance. Prices are for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Figures on this page were generated 2026-10-28. Gold is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.