How much gold is in gold?

A quick guide to carats in gold

Gold jewelry remains the most popular choice for jewelry enthusiasts all across the world with yellow gold still coming on top. It's versatile, dazzling and goes with everything. However, white gold tends to be favoured for wedding bands and engagement rings due to the fact that it so beautifully compliments the brilliance of white diamonds. Having said that, yellow gold goes with diamonds exceptionally well too :)

The pure gold metal is quite malleable, making it a tricky option for jewelry due to its low durability and high probability of damage. Consequently, mixing it with other metals is a way of making jewelry last for many decades. Just as yellow gold is an alloy of pure 24 carat gold with other metals, white gold tends to contain silver or palladium to create that lovely shade of white. To increase its durability, the majority of white gold pieces are plated with rhodium, which is also responsible for the stunning shine that white gold jewelry has.

At this point it is worth noting that gold jewelry might come in a variety of shades, depending on the metal or oxides that are included in the alloy along with gold. For example, rose gold jewelry is created by adding copper into the mix.

The purity of gold jewelry, regardless of its colour, is measured in carats. Based on the percentage of gold that is alloyed in the mix, the intended amount of carats is created. As it is easy to guess, the higher the content of pure gold in the mix, the more valuable the piece.

The highest amount of carats is 24, which is pure gold and almost never used in jewelry. Other metals are alloyed with 24 carat gold to increase their longevity. A popular choice is 18 carat gold, which still contains a high percentage - 75% - of pure gold but is considerably more durable. 14 carat gold offers the best value in terms of quality and price, making it a very popular choice among jewelry lovers all over the globe. (With the exception of Asia where 99.0% purity gold jewelry is still the top choice).

Just as carats are universally used to describe gold purity, the lowest amount of carats that are considered “gold” differs depending on the country or region. It’s 9 carats for the UK, Ireland, Canada, Austria, Poland and Portugal. Denmark and Greece lowered the standard to 8 carats for a piece to be legally considered gold. On the other hand, the USA requires at least 10 carats as a minimum for gold jewelry.

The purity of gold can also be expressed with fineness - which describes the amount of gold parts per thousand, for example, 0.585 (14 ct) or 0.375 (9 ct).

Technically, 14 carat ought to be equal to .583, however the practice of making gold 0.585, which has been widely accepted in Europe, lead to be the standard  used by jewelry making for 14 ct jewelry.

Other popular fineness standards are .417 for 10 carat jewelry, .833 for 20 carat - used in Asia, and 0.999 for 24 pure carat gold, with 0.001 allowed for impurities that are likely to occur in the pure gold metal. Whatever the fineness, gold jewelry is the perfect choice for a gift for yourself or that special someone :) Share your favourite type of jewelry in the comments section :) Visit koorboutique.store to find many one of a kind vintage gold, silver and costume jewelry pieces.