The Three Treasure Keys in Palworld: Copper, Silver and Gold, and Only One Is Worth Selling
Palworld's locked treasure chests need keys, and there are exactly three: Copper, Silver and Gold. They share a description — "A key that can be used to open locked treasure chests" — and differ only in rarity and in what they open.
The detail worth knowing is economic: a Gold Key sells for ten times what a Copper or Silver Key does, which makes it the only one where selling is even a question.
The Three Keys
| Key | Rarity | Sell value | With Noble and Fine Furs | Weight | Stack |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copper Key | Uncommon | 1 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 9,999 |
| Silver Key | Rare | 1 | 1.4 | 0.1 | 9,999 |
| Gold Key | Epic | 10 | 14 | 0.1 | 9,999 |
Copper and Silver sell for the same 1 gold despite being different rarities — the rarity tier does not track the sale price for the first two.
The Gold Key breaks that at 10 gold, rising to 14 with the full Noble and Fine Furs merchant stack, which our merchant economy guide covers.
All three weigh 0.1 and stack to 9,999, which is effectively unlimited. There is no inventory argument for leaving keys behind or for selling them to make room.
Ten gold is still nothing. Even the Gold Key's sale value is trivial against what a locked chest contains — the point of the comparison is that selling any key is a mistake, and the Gold Key is merely the least bad one.
What They Are For
Locked treasure chests are a distinct loot source from the ordinary dungeon chests, and the key tier gates which ones you can open:
- Copper Key — Uncommon, the entry tier.
- Silver Key — Rare, the middle.
- Gold Key — Epic, the top.
Keys are Consumables, not Key Items — they are spent on use, unlike Bounty Tokens or the Key Spheres of the seven sins, which are held forever. The naming is unhelpful and the two are easy to conflate.
Their internal codes make the tiering explicit: TreasureBoxKey01, TreasureBoxKey02 and TreasureBoxKey03.
Carry all three. Since they weigh 0.1 and stack to 9,999, there is no reason to leave a tier at home — and finding a Gold-locked chest without a Gold Key is a walk back.
Where They Come From
Keys turn up alongside the other consumable rewards:
- Dungeon chests across all tiers.
- Enemy camps, which our camp loot table guide breaks down.
- Bounty and boss rewards.
- Ordinary world chests, at the lower tiers.
Copper Keys accumulate faster than you spend them. The lower two tiers are common enough that most players finish the game with hundreds banked, which is another reason the sale value is irrelevant.
Gold Keys are the bottleneck. As the Epic-rarity tier they arrive far more slowly, and the chests they open are the ones worth a detour.
What to Do With Them
- Never sell a key. At 1 gold for Copper and Silver and 10 for Gold, the sale value is a rounding error against a chest's contents.
- Carry all three tiers permanently. 0.1 weight and a 9,999 stack make the cost of doing so nil.
- Do not confuse them with Key Spheres. Keys are Consumables meant to be spent; the eight Key Spheres of the sins are Key Items meant to be kept.
- Save Gold Keys for chests you have identified, since they are the slow tier.
- Check Key Items before a bulk sell, because a merchant screen makes it very easy to clear out the wrong category.
One practical note for groups. Keys are per-player inventory, so a guild running a dungeon should confirm somebody is carrying the right tier before setting out — nothing is more annoying than a Gold chest and five Copper Keys.
Running your own Palworld 1.0 server
Locked chests are found on routes that take multiple sessions to clear, so the keys have to survive in inventory between them. A gamever Palworld server keeps it persistent with full crossplay, automatic updates and one-click backups.
Conclusion
Palworld has exactly three treasure keys — Copper (Uncommon), Silver (Rare) and Gold (Epic) — all sharing one description and all weighing 0.1 with a 9,999 stack, so carrying every tier costs nothing. Their sale values do not track rarity: Copper and Silver both sell for 1 gold, while the Gold Key sells for 10, rising to 14 with the full Noble and Fine Furs merchant bonus. That is still trivial against what a locked chest holds, which makes selling any key a mistake. They are Consumables, spent on use — not to be confused with the Key Spheres, which are Key Items held permanently, or with Bounty Tokens, which work simply by being owned. Keys come from dungeon chests, enemy camps and bounty rewards; the lower two tiers accumulate faster than anyone spends them, and the Gold Key is the genuine bottleneck.
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