Gold Jewelery: What Are Carats All About?
Several materials are used to design ornaments. Initially, copper ornaments were used in ancient civilizations. Then bronze and brass jewelry became popular. With the discovery of gold and silver, designing and wearing jewelry became an expensive affair. Yet the charm for ornamentation continued to grow. In addition to gold and silver, pearls, platinum, and diamonds are also popular materials used in jewelry design. That said, gold continues to remain the sought after material for ornaments. Fascination for gold jewelry has only grown over the centuries.
That said, we all know that gold prices are touching the sky. This makes it impossible for the salaried or worker class to afford ornaments made of pure gold. In order to reduce the cost of gold ornaments, a small amount of a less precious metal such as copper or silver is alloyed with gold to make ornaments.
A carat is a unit that measures the percentage of gold in a mixture of gold and another metal. In jewelry stores, signs that label the number of carats in a piece of jewelry are common. A 24 carat piece is made of solid gold, but an 18 carat piece is comprised of 75 percent gold and 25 percent of another metal, which might cost a little less.
It's hard to make ornaments out of pure gold, because gold is easily shaped but rather weak. Since it has low tensile strength, gold chips easily, and pure gold jewelry is susceptible to lots of nicks and cuts. On the market for buyers today, only biscuits or coins are available in pure 24 carat gold. There is, however, a wide selection of jewelry made from gold alloys.
If you are somebody who does not have a fortune to splurge on gold jewelry, do not be disheartened. There are several ways you can buy jewelry that looks equally good, if not better, than 22 carat jewelry. One way is buying semi precious jewelry that marries semi precious stones such as ruby, sapphire, and emerald with 14k jewelry.
You can also choose instead to wear gold plated silver jewels. They bear a striking similarity to the real gold ornaments. In fact, where the quality of the plating is superior, it is almost impossible to distinguish which is which without a jeweler's loupe.
Fascination for gold jewelery has only grown over the centuries. There are a variety of ways to buy jewelry that looks just as good, often better, than 22 carat jewelry. One way to do this is to buy semi precious jewelry that combines semi precious stones like sapphires, rubies, and emeralds with 14k jewelry. Another possible alternative is to purchase silver jeweler that has gold coating on it. Only a jeweler can claim to successfully distinguish gold plated silver jeweler from pure gold jewelry at all times. Yes, they look so similar to pure gold jewelry.
Published June 4th, 2008
Filed in Women