Gold price per tola in the UK, and baht gold explained

What is a tola in grams?

One tola is 11.6638 grams. The figure is not a rounding of anything: the tola was fixed at 180 troy grains in the British Indian system of weights and measures introduced in 1833, and 180 grains is exactly three-eighths of a troy ounce, which works out at 11.6638038 g. The same 11.6638 g and 0.375 oz appear in the conversion tables used in the gold bar trade today (Gold Bars Worldwide, LBMA conversion factors).

The unit travels under several names. Bengali and Bangladeshi families usually say vori, bhori or bori, and it is the same weight. Pakistan and Nepal both use the tola, and Nepali gold coins are still struck in tola denominations. The classic cast bar of the Dubai and South Asian trade is the ten tola bar, sometimes called a TT bar, at 116.638 g.

What is a baht of gold, and why are there two baht weights?

In Thailand the baht is a unit of weight as well as a currency. For gold it is 15.244 grams, or 0.4901 troy ounces, and a quarter baht, called a salung, is 3.811 g (Singapore Bullion Market Association, Thailand’s gold market). That is the figure used for gold bars, and it is the figure the Thai daily gold price is quoted against.

Finished jewellery is the awkward part. A chain or bangle sold as one baht is customarily made to around 15.16 g rather than 15.244 g, a long-standing trade convention rather than a legal standard (Integrity Legal, Bangkok). The 0.08 g gap is small, but the wider point matters more: the name on the receipt is a nominal size, not a measured weight. Wear, repairs, replaced clasps and solder all move the real number. Put the piece on the scales rather than assuming.

Is 96.5% Thai gold the same as UK 22ct?

No, and the difference is worth money. Thai gold is made to 96.5% fineness, stamped 965 or 96.5 and called 23K in the Thai trade. In carat arithmetic 96.5% of 24 is 23.16 carats. Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Gulf jewellery is normally 22ct, which is 91.6% and marked 916. A 965 piece carries about 5.3% more gold per gram than a 916 piece, so a buyer who assumes "Asian gold, so 22ct" underpays on Thai work. An XRF assay removes the guesswork by measuring what the alloy actually is.

There is a hallmarking consequence too. The legal standards of fineness for gold in the UK are 999, 990, 916, 750, 585 and 375 (British Hallmarking Council, guidance on fineness, April 2014). 965 is not among them, so no UK assay office can strike a 965 mark and no UK hallmark will ever describe your Thai chain as 96.5%. A 965 stamp is a maker’s or national mark, as is an Indian BIS mark on 916 work. Neither is a UK hallmark, and neither makes the gold any less real. If your pieces carry no British marks at all, selling gold without hallmarks explains how that is handled.

What is one tola or one baht of gold worth?

What a tola or baht piece is worth comes down to three things: how much it weighs, how pure the alloy actually is, and the live precious-metal market on the day it is assessed. Weight and purity are fixed properties of the piece, so the standard sizes below are a useful guide to how much metal you are holding. The market moves every trading day, which is why a firm figure follows weighing and an XRF assay rather than a nominal size stamped on the piece.

What would a UK postal buyer pay, and how is it worked out?

A UK postal buyer prices the metal content, not the making. Take the market value of the fine gold in the piece (weight × purity × the day’s fine-gold price), then allow for refining, assay, handling and margin, which sit between the market and any consumer offer at every reputable firm. GoldPaid does not publish a public buying rate; your firm figure is set after an XRF assay and priced against the live precious-metal market on the day your parcel is examined.

Because 965 is not a UK fineness standard, a 965 Thai piece is still assayed by XRF and priced on the tested result: the per-gram figure scales linearly with purity, so 965 lands proportionally above 22ct and just below 24ct on the same day. Final offers depend on inspection, item weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, non-gold components, condition and the live precious-metal market. Send a photo of the piece and its weight on WhatsApp for a rough estimate before you post.

One more point on high-value holdings. Royal Mail cover may be available up to £2,500 depending on the postal method and cover level used, so a ten tola bar is several times above what a single parcel can sensibly carry. Do not post it. Split a holding into parcels that sit inside the cover, or deal face to face with a bullion dealer who can take it over the counter. We will say the same thing if you ask us.

When is a Thai or Indian gold shop the better place to sell?

Often, and it would be dishonest not to say so. Thai gold shops price an ornament as the day’s gold price plus a fixed making charge, and buy it back close to the day’s published buy price because they can put it straight back in the window and sell it again as jewellery. A UK postal buyer is buying metal to be refined, so the making charge you paid is gone and the workmanship earns nothing. If the piece is wearable, undamaged and you or a relative are going back to Thailand anyway, the shop buy-back will usually clear more pounds than a UK scrap offer.

The same logic applies to 22ct Indian and Gulf wedding gold. An exchange or buy-back at the jeweller who made it, or a sale within the family, frequently beats scrap value on a complete, undamaged set, because the next owner is paying for the piece rather than for the metal in it. Ask before you assume scrap is the answer.

The postal route is the sensible one when the jewellery is broken, single, out of fashion or simply never going to be worn again; when nobody is travelling; when an estate has to be settled; or when you want the matter finished this week with the money in your account. It is also the answer when a piece has already been offered around the family and nobody wants it.

How are tola and baht pieces weighed and tested here?

Every piece is weighed individually to 0.01 g and XRF tested on its own, not averaged across the parcel. Nominal sizes are ignored: a chain sold as one baht is weighed as whatever it now is, and a bangle described as two tola is weighed as whatever it now is. That protects you as often as it protects us, because a set that has had links added reads heavier than its name.

Non-gold content is separated rather than guessed at. Indian bangles and kadas are often filled with lac or another resin to hold their shape, and some 22ct and 965 chains are hollow rope work built over a core. Enamel, kundan settings, glass, thread and steel clasp springs are not gold either. All of it is deducted, and the written offer shows which piece the deduction came from, so nothing disappears into a single parcel-level number. Our page on how we value gold sets out the assay itself.

After that the process is the same as for any other parcel. You get a written, per-piece offer showing purity, weight and rate. If you accept, we aim to pay by Faster Payments within one working hour of your acceptance. If you decline, every item comes back tracked at our cost. GOLDPAID LTD is a UK postal buyer. Photos and questions go to 07944 014111 on WhatsApp, and selling 22ct gold by post walks through the whole sequence.

Other gold weight units you may run into

All of them convert to grams, and grams are what the scales and the offer use. How gold is weighed covers the UK units in more detail, and what 916 means covers the carat most tola jewellery is made in.