Units of Weight for the Gold Prospector

Know what you have and don't get ripped off!  

Since the base value of placer gold always starts with it’s weight, it’s very important to know the proper weights and measures for gold.  Most prospectors want to know how much their gold weighs to get a rough idea of its value.   Here are some useful units of weight and measurement for the gold prospector.

Gold is measured in Troy ounces . The proper abbreviation is ozt.

A troy ounce weighs a bit more than a standard ounce, 1.097 to be precise 

and 12 troy ounces make up a troy pound.

When you see the spot price of gold, or are looking at gold charts they are referring to the price of one ounce of gold in troy.

Often, small amounts of nugget gold and fine gold are measured in units called grams.  This is what we use most often around the store and on the website.

There are 31.107463 grams in one troy ounce of gold. Shorten it to 31.1 grams per troy ounce. So, if you found a nugget that weighs 7.775 grams, then you would have a quarter ounce nugget. 15.55 grams equals a 1/2 ounce nugget.  Use  31.1 and divide it by the weight in grams and you easily have your troy ounce figure. 

The abbreviation for a gram is g or sometimes grm.

Another popular weight measurement for nuggets and fine flour gold  is the pennyweight. There are 20 pennyweights in a troy ounce and each pennyweight equals 1.55 grams. The abbreviation for a pennyweight is dwt.

Sometimes smaller amounts of gold are found and it’s useful to measure the gold in grains. There are 480 grains in a troy ounce, 15.4324 grains in a gram and 24 grains in a pennyweight. The abbreviation for grains is gn or gr, not to be confused with g.

Be sure you know the difference when buying gold on ebay.  Some unscrupulous sellers will describe their gold as g (grams) when they really mean gr (grains).  We'll post more about avoiding ebay gold scams later.