How Much Gold Does that Strangely Shaped Little Item Contain?
Are you trying to figure out how much gold, silver, platinum, or other metal is contained in a small metal item you have found – a button, a little pyramid, or maybe a charm or a religious medal?
In most cases, getting a bead on how much precious metal you have is simple. You just weigh it!
Of course, you have to consider different variables too. Silver items can be alloyed with different metals – even copper – and that will impact on how much a silver item is worth. And then we come to the issue of Karat gold – 24K gold is pure gold, and any lower karat rating indicates that the gold has been mixed with other metals.
We don’t need to go into what karat ratings mean today. We will simply refer you to What Is Karat Gold and How Can You Find Out What Yours Is Worth?, a post we published on this blog way back in 2014. You will find your answers there.
But What About Determining How Much Gold, Silver or Platinum Is Contained in Small Items?
As we mentioned above, you basically only need to weigh an item to get a first-pass estimate of how much precious metal it contains.
If you happen to find a metal cube, a metal sphere, a metal pyramid or a metal cylinder, you can calculate the area of those shapes. If the area of a 24K gold cube is 0.005 cubic inches, that means that you own 0.005 cubic inches of gold, which equals about 0.001 ounces.
Here are some useful formulas you can use to determine the volume of different shapes.
A cube – the volume equals the length of one side, cubed
A cylinder – the volume equals π x the radius squared x the height of the cylinder
A coin – a coin is nothing but a short cylinder, so use the formula just above for a cylinder
A pyramid – the volume is ½ the area of the base x the height (in other words, you can think of most pyramids as half of a cube)
But as we say, why not simply weigh the item you have? And there are other advantages to weighing. One is that your precious metal item is probably strangely shaped. How much silver, for example, is contained in a little silver comb? How much gold is in a charm from a charm bracelet?
The Water Displacement Method of Determining Volume
But if you really want to know the volume of a shape, there is another way. It is to use the water displacement method. You simply drop the item you want to measure into a measuring cylinder (one that has lines on its side that indicate the volume of water it contains) that is partially filled with water. When an object enters water held in that container, the water level rises to make room for it. You measure how much the water rises, and that tells you the volume of the object you dropped in.
And the Simplest Way to Know the Content and Value of Gold Scrap and Silver Scrap
Simple solution! Send your scrap items to us at Specialty Metals Smelters and Refiners and we will issue you a report on exactly what your scrap contains.
Call our precious metal recycling experts at 800-426-2344 and we will make the process streamlined, accurate, and simple.