A surprising amount of confusion at the jeweller’s counter comes down to one thing: nobody agrees on which unit to use. Older relatives talk in tola and masha. The scale shows grams. International prices are quoted per ounce. If you don’t have the conversions in your head, it’s easy to feel lost — and easy to be quoted a number you can’t double-check.

So here’s the plain map. Keep it handy.

The units that matter

  • 1 tola = 11.664 grams. This is the big one. Almost all gold and silver here is quoted per tola.
  • 1 tola = 12 masha. So 1 masha is just under a gram (about 0.972 g).
  • 1 masha = 8 ratti. Ratti is the tiny unit, mostly used for small stones and very light pieces.
  • 1 troy ounce = 31.1035 grams. This is what international prices use — and it’s a troy ounce, which is heavier than the kitchen ounce, so don’t mix them up.

One troy ounce is about 2.667 tola. So when you see a global gold price “per ounce,” divide by roughly 2.667 to start moving toward a per-tola figure (before exchange rate and local premium).

Quick conversions you’ll actually use

If you know the per-tola rate, here’s how to get the others:

  • Per gram = tola rate ÷ 11.664.
  • Per 10 grams = (tola rate ÷ 11.664) × 10. Many shops display this figure.
  • Per masha = tola rate ÷ 12.

So if 24K gold is quoted at, say, PKR 465,000 per tola, then per gram is about PKR 39,866, and per 10 grams about PKR 398,660. You don’t need to be exact in your head — just close enough to know if a quote sounds wrong.

Why this protects you

Imagine a piece weighs 2.5 tola. At PKR 465,000 a tola, the gold alone is worth about PKR 1,162,500 before making charges. If you only think in grams, that’s 29.16 grams — same value, but a completely different-looking number. A buyer who can’t move between the two is easier to confuse. A buyer who can is in control.

A note on the troy ounce

People often trip over this. The ounce used for precious metals (the troy ounce, 31.1035 g) is not the same as the ounce used for food and post (the avoirdupois ounce, about 28.35 g). When you read international gold prices, they’re always troy ounces. Use 31.1035 grams and you’ll never be off.

The one number to memorise

If you remember nothing else, remember 11.664 — the grams in a tola. With that single number you can convert any tola price into grams and back, check any jeweller’s quote, and follow along when the rate moves. Everything else you can look up. Our city rate pages already show per-tola, per-10g and per-gram side by side, so you can sanity-check on the spot.