Gold Jewelery: What Are Carats All About?
Lots of different kinds of materials can be used to create ornaments. In ancient times, copper ornaments were popular. Then, they gave way to bronze or brass pieces. After gold and silver became more readily available, the price of jewelry was affected, but more and more people became interested in buying trinkets. Other popular trinket materials include pearls, platinum, and diamonds. Even so, the most popular material for jewelry is gold, and it retains its popularity right down to the present day.
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 is extremely hard to create 24 carat gold jewelry since gold is soft, bending and cracking quite easily. Due to this low tensile strength, little flakes can be abraded off an object made out of solid gold. Purchasers can only find gold "biscuits" or coins made of nearly pure gold. Aside from those, one has to settle for something made out of an alloy.
Don't be discouraged if you simply cannot afford to purchase expensive golden jewels. You can find room in your budget for ones of equally fine appearance, perhaps ones that look even nicer than 22 carat jewelry. Consider purchasing semi-precious accessories that combine gemstones like garnets, emeralds, amethysts, or turquoise with 14 carat gold.
You may also go for silver jewelry that has been plated with gold. This looks similar to jewelry made from gold. If the quality of gold plating or polish is good, it becomes extremely difficult to tell the difference with the naked eye.
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
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