Gold Lessons – Karat and Color
Have you ever confused with the term Karat and Carat? “Carat” is the term for describing gemstone in term of weight, while “Karat” is the term for describing quality (purity) and price of gold or its proportion in alloy.
For “gold” jewelry, 24 karat is the term defined a pure gold in jewelry market. The other term to defined gold purity is fineness; 24 karat is equal to 1000 fineness or one karat equal to 41.66 fineness. If you see the term 22 karat gold, the composition of the alloy is 22 parts of gold with 2 parts of other metal (copper, for example). For 18 karat, it has 18 parts of gold which equal to 75% or pure gold inside.
For 24 karat gold or a pure gold, this is not usually used for any jewelry making as it is too fragile. The color for pure gold is yellow, and easy to get scratches and bend. Therefore, pure gold is not popular for jewelry maker.
In the other way, gold alloy is popular for jewelry maker. There are many color shade of gold alloy available in for jewelry designer to choose and design for any gold accessories. The mixture of different metal in the alloy has a direct effect to the alloy color. Yellow gold is the mimic form of pure gold (by the mixture between gold and silver) while white gold is an alloy of gold with one of these white metals, usually nickel, manganese or palladium. Rose gold is a gold alloy with copper and widely used for specialized jewelry. It is also known as pink gold and red gold depended on the copper content. You can also find the color like green gold which is the mixture between gold and silver only while grey gold alloys are made by manganese and copper in specific ratios to the mixture of gold and silver. The mixture of other metal in gold is not only effect to the alloy color, but also to the alloy quality. Pure gold is too fragile, adding the other metal has increase its strength and able to use in jewelry industrial.
However, making the alloy isn’t as simple as it might sound. Adding too little or too much of other metal can make the mixture brittle, too hard or too difficult to work for gold accessory. Consider for the gold mixture before make your decision on gold jewelry.