Melt Value Of Coins Calculator
A coin can be worth more as metal than as money. This calculator works out that metal value, the melt value, from four things you enter yourself: the weight of one coin in grams, its purity, the metal price per gram, and how many coins you have. You get one total in dollars, plus a per-coin reading for judging a dealer’s offer coin by coin.
Example coin: pre-1965 US quarter, 6.25 g at 90 percent. Enter the current silver price per gram.
Melt value is the raw metal worth before any dealer margin, refining charge or collector premium. What you are offered for a coin is usually lower, and what a collector pays for a scarce date can be far higher.
Quick Answer
Forty pre-1965 US silver quarters (6.25 g each, 90% silver) with silver at $1.75 per gram have a total melt value of $393.75, which is $9.84 per coin from 225.00 g of pure silver. Enter your own weight, purity, per-gram price and quantity in the calculator and it runs the same maths: weight × purity × price per gram × quantity.
Key takeaways
- Melt value is a floor, not a price. Common, worn coins trade close to it; scarce dates and high grades carry a collector premium on top.
- The price field wants dollars per gram. Spot prices are quoted per troy ounce (31.1035 g), so divide before you type, or every result comes out about 31 times too big.
- The coin type dropdown fills an example coin. Choosing a metal sets the weight and purity of a named example coin and clears the price field, so a gold selection can no longer return a silver price result; edit the filled values for your actual coin.
- Dealers buy below melt. Refining, assay and their margin come off the top, so an offer 10% under melt can be a fair trade offer rather than a lowball.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the melt value calculator
- The melt value formula
- Worked example: 40 pre-1965 silver quarters
- Melt values for common US silver coins
- Melt value, face value and collector value are three different numbers
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the melt value calculator
Choose the metal, enter the weight of one coin, its purity, the metal price per gram and the number of coins, then click Calculate. The results stay hidden until you calculate.
- Select the coin type: gold, silver, platinum or copper. Choosing a metal fills the weight and purity of a named example coin and clears the price field, so you enter that metal’s own price per gram, then edit the filled values for your actual coin.
- Enter the weight of one coin in grams: use the mint specification for an unworn coin, or weigh the actual coin. The U.S. Mint coin specifications list current US coin weights, and the table further down covers the classic silver issues this calculator is most often used for.
- Enter purity as a percentage: 90 for pre-1965 US silver, 99.9 for a fine silver round, 91.67 for a 22-karat gold coin. For karat gold, purity percent = karat ÷ 24 × 100, so 14-karat is 58.3.
- Enter the metal price per gram: take the spot price per troy ounce and divide by 31.1035. If you track metal prices through the gold price per ounce calculator, the same division converts that per-ounce figure into the per-gram figure this tool needs.
- Enter the quantity and calculate: the total appears with a per-coin reading and the total pure metal weight behind it, which is the figure a refiner will check first.
Two behaviours worth knowing before you rely on a result. The quantity is read as a whole number, so 2.9 coins are counted as 2. And the calculator now rejects a non-positive weight, price or quantity and a purity outside 0 to 100, so a purity of 150 or a negative weight returns a warning instead of a number, but still glance at your inputs before you quote the output.
The melt value formula
Melt value = weight per coin × purity × price per gram × quantity. Purity enters as a decimal, so 90% becomes 0.90 inside the multiplication.
Pure metal per coin = Weight × (Purity % ÷ 100) | Price per gram = Spot price per troy ounce ÷ 31.1035
The formula is the same one dealers and refiners use, and it is the definition behind the benchmark prices published by the LBMA Gold Price and the LBMA Silver Price auctions: metal content times market price, nothing else. Everything that makes a real transaction differ from this number sits outside the formula: the premium a mint or dealer charges over spot when you buy, the discount under melt when you sell, and the collector value of the coin as an object. A melt calculator that folded those in would be guessing at your buyer, which is why this one stops at the metal.
Unit discipline is where most hand calculations go wrong. Coin specifications are in grams, spot prices are per troy ounce, and the troy ounce (31.1035 g) is not the kitchen ounce (28.3495 g): mixing them understates melt by about 9%. Work in grams from the start, and tools like the grams to dollars calculator will agree with this one.
Example coins filled by the coin type menu
One weight cannot describe a whole metal, so each menu choice fills one named example coin. The price is never filled, because spot prices move: enter the current price per gram for the metal you selected. Always edit the filled values for the coin in front of you.
| Metal | Example coin filled | Weight (g) | Purity (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | American Gold Eagle, 1 oz | 33.931 | 91.67 |
| Silver | Pre-1965 US quarter | 6.25 | 90 |
| Platinum | American Platinum Eagle, 1 oz | 31.12 | 99.95 |
| Copper | 1 oz copper round | 31.103 | 99.9 |
Worked example: 40 pre-1965 silver quarters
Forty Washington quarters struck before 1965, each 6.25 g of 90% silver, with silver at $1.75 per gram (about $54.43 per troy ounce), melt for $393.75 in total. The calculator above is pre-filled with exactly these inputs, so one click reproduces every figure here.
At $1.50 per gram the same stack melts for $337.50, and at $2.00 per gram for $450.00. Nothing about the coins changed: melt reprices every time the metal market moves, so record the spot price and the date alongside any figure you keep for an estate, an insurance schedule or a sale.
Melt values for common US silver coins
At silver priced at $55.00 per troy ounce ($1.7683 per gram), the classic US silver coins melt for the amounts below. Every row is weight × purity × $1.7683 per gram, rounded to cents, so you can reproduce any row in the calculator by entering that row’s weight, purity and quantity 1.
| Coin | Weight (g) | Purity | Pure silver (g) | Melt at $55.00/ozt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dime, pre-1965 | 2.50 | 90% | 2.250 | $3.98 |
| Quarter, pre-1965 | 6.25 | 90% | 5.625 | $9.95 |
| Half dollar, pre-1965 | 12.50 | 90% | 11.250 | $19.89 |
| Morgan or Peace dollar | 26.69 | 90% | 24.021 | $42.48 |
| Kennedy half, 1965 to 1970 | 11.50 | 40% | 4.600 | $8.13 |
| War nickel, 1942 to 1945 | 5.00 | 35% | 1.750 | $3.09 |
| American Silver Eagle | 31.103 | 99.9% | 31.072 | $54.94 |
Two rows deserve a second look. The war nickel is the only circulating US nickel with silver in it, struck with a large mint mark over the dome on the reverse, and at 35% purity it is easy to undervalue if you assume it is a base-metal coin. The 40% Kennedy halves catch people the other way: they look like the 90% coins, but at 11.50 g and 40% purity each one holds less silver than a pre-1965 quarter. Gold works the same way at larger numbers: a 1 oz American Gold Eagle weighs 33.93 g at 91.67% purity, which is exactly 31.10 g of pure gold, and at $131.26 per gram the calculator returns $4,082.66 for one coin.
Melt value, face value and collector value are three different numbers
Every coin carries up to three values, and confusing them is how coins get sold too cheaply. Face value is what the coin spends for: a quarter is 25 cents at a till regardless of its silver. Melt value is the metal floor computed here. Collector (numismatic) value is what a buyer pays for the date, mint mark, condition and scarcity, and it sits on top of the other two.
Sell at melt when
- The coin is common-date, worn or damaged
- A price guide shows no premium over metal
- You are selling bullion-style: Eagles, rounds, junk silver by weight
Check collector value first when
- The date or mint mark is scarce, or the coin is uncirculated
- It is a key date in its series, or an early US issue
- A dealer offers melt quickly without examining it
Expect a dealer’s buying price to sit below melt, because the dealer still has to refine, assay and resell the metal; the APMEX guide to melt values and melt value prices walks through how those deductions stack up. The practical use of the number here is negotiation: an offer 30% under melt for standard 90% silver charges far more than refining costs, and a second quote is worth the trip. The weigh-then-value routine transfers, too: it prices stones with the gem weight calculator and finished pieces with the diamond cost per carat calculator. Keep the dated melt record with the sale paperwork: a profitable coin sale is a capital transaction, and the IRS summary of capital gains and losses (Topic No. 409) is the starting point for how it is reported.
What competing calculators miss
Melt value tools split into two camps, and each gives up something real:
- Live-price coin tables (CoinApps and NGC-style melt listings, MeltValue.com): excellent for the specific US coins they list, with spot updated for you. The cost is scope: a coin outside their table, a foreign issue, a medal or a token gets no answer, and you cannot test a what-if price for a negotiation.
- Generic weight-and-purity tools: flexible like this one, but most take price per troy ounce and weight in ounces, hiding the unit conversion where mistakes happen, and return a bare total with no per-coin figure.
- The gap this page fills: any coin or metal object you can weigh, a per-gram price you control (so yesterday’s quote, a dealer’s live bid and a what-if price all work), a per-coin reading and a pure-metal total alongside the headline value, and an honest note that the metal type dropdown is a label: the number comes from your weight, purity and price, not from a hidden coin database.
Frequently asked questions
Melt value is the worth of the metal inside a coin at current market prices, ignoring face value and collector value. It is the coin’s gross weight multiplied by its purity and by the metal price: a 6.25 g, 90% silver quarter holds 5.625 g of pure silver, worth $9.84 at $1.75 per gram.
Divide the per-ounce spot price by 31.1035, the number of grams in a troy ounce. Silver at $55.00 per troy ounce is $1.77 per gram, and gold at $4,082.75 per troy ounce is $131.26 per gram. Entering the per-ounce price directly would inflate every result about 31 times.
Yes, in one controlled way. Choosing a metal fills the weight and purity of a named example coin (see the example-coin table in the formula section) and clears the price field, so you must enter that metal’s own price per gram. The calculation itself still uses only the weight, purity, price per gram and quantity shown, so edit the filled values for the actual coin in front of you.
Enter 90 for dimes, quarters and half dollars dated 1964 and earlier, and for Morgan and Peace dollars. Enter 40 for Kennedy half dollars from 1965 to 1970, and 35 for Jefferson nickels dated 1942 to 1945 (the war nickels with a large mint mark above the dome). Modern bullion coins such as the American Silver Eagle are 99.9.
Because melt value counts only the metal. A scarce date, a low mintage, an error or a high grade adds collector (numismatic) value on top of the metal floor. Melt is the minimum a standard example is worth as bullion; check a price guide before selling anything old, scarce or uncirculated for its metal value.
A dealer who buys your coins still has to assay, refine and resell the metal, and prices that work plus a margin into the bid. Small lots of mixed 90% silver commonly attract a noticeable discount under melt, while standard bullion coins in quantity usually trade closer to it. The melt figure here is your benchmark for judging whether a discount is reasonable.
Yes, slightly. Circulation wears metal away, so a heavily worn pre-1965 quarter can weigh noticeably less than its 6.25 g specification. The calculator uses the weight you enter, so weighing the actual coins, or entering a slightly lower average weight for a worn lot, gives a more honest total than the mint specification.
Yes. The formula is the same for any metal object: gross weight times purity times price per gram. For karat gold jewellery, convert karat to purity first (14-karat is 58.3%, 18-karat is 75%). Stamped fineness such as 999 or 925 can be entered directly as 99.9 or 92.5.
Add This Calculator to Your Website
Embed this calculator on your own site with the code below. Pick a size to preview it live, then copy the code.
Powered by Calculator Zilo
References
- United States Mint. Coin Specifications. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- LBMA. LBMA Gold Price. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- LBMA. LBMA Silver Price. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- LBMA. About LBMA Daily Auction Prices (gold, silver, platinum and palladium). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- APMEX. Melt Values and Melt Value Prices. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). The International System of Units (SI Brochure). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- United States Mint. Bullion Coin Programs. Accessed October 22, 2026.