Good day! Those who bought jewelry abroad often do not understand what 18 carat gold means: what grade is it and how much precious metal is contained in such an alloy? People from the territory of the former USSR are little familiar with the carat testing system - we have been using the metric system for a long time. The situation is aggravated by the existence of the “diamond carat,” which measures the weight of precious stones. But gold items purchased abroad are often marked with karat marks.
What is carat
The karat system involves designating the percentage of gold in the alloy with numbers from 9 to 24, where 24 is the highest standard, that is, 100%. Physically, the absolute purity of the metal is unattainable and impurities are present in trace amounts, therefore the “thousandth” sample is designated by the number 999 - 99.9%.
I’ll answer the main question right away: in Russia, jewelry with a hallmark of 18K is indicated by the 750 mark. They contain 75% pure gold.
Origin of the word
The breadfruit tree of John, known to people since biblical times, grows in the Mediterranean - Ceratonia capita. Its fruits are consumed as a delicacy, added to immunostimulating complexes, and compote is made from them. But ceratonia also has a non-standard property for plants: it produces seeds, the mass of which is constant and equal to ~0.19 g. Our ancient ancestors noticed this and began to use a measure of weight that refers to the seed of ceratonia (Greek cerátiοn), the carat.
The modern carat (measure of weight) has not changed since then and is 0.2 g.
How to determine carat content
You won’t be able to measure the gold content in jewelry if the sample has worn off and is hard to see at home. The maximum that will be possible is to distinguish a gold alloy from an obvious fake. But if the ring has another standard - metric or spool (it is found on jewelry and luxury items produced before the revolution or immediately after), then you can convert its value into the carat system.
How to convert to the metric system and sample correspondence table
There are two ways to convert carats to thousandths of mass.
- Calculate. A complex, but universal method that works with unpopular samples. We take 24 carats as 100% and get a carat equal to 4.17% of the total mass. If a product is marked 18K, then in the metric system it is 4.17 x 18 = 75%, that is, 750 fine.
- Use the correspondence table. I'm including a spool test in case you come across an antique tiara.
| Metric system | 999 | 958 | 900 | 750 | 585 | 500 | 375 |
| Carat system | 24 | 23 | 22 | 18 | 14 | 12 | 9 |
| Spool system | 96 | 92 | 88 | 72 | 56 | 48 | 36 |
| Gold content | 99,9 % | 95,8 % | 90 % | 75 % | 58,5 % | 50 % | 37,5 % |
Legislative regulation
In Russia, all precious metal products with a purity of at least 300 are subject to hallmarking and hallmarking (actually 375, because we do not produce lower-grade gold). The metric value of the sample is applied to the jewelry; it is up to the buyer to convert it into carats.
How is white gold made?
Even in ancient Egypt, the most expensive jewelry - beautiful rings, bracelets, pendants - were made of platinum. This went on for centuries.
Platinum pieces, despite the price, were reserved for royalty and the wealthiest people. The situation changed during the Second World War. The army needed platinum for strategic use.
It was used in weapon parts (including chemical ones), instruments, and electric batteries. This directed the efforts of jewelers to create an alternative metal similar to the wonderful platinum.
It turned out that mixing gold with nickel, palladium or zinc will significantly whiten the metal, making it similar to the desired product. Although the war is long over, white gold does not lose its relevance. The main advantage is the price: for the 585th sample it is 4 times lower than the original.
Composition (percentage):
- gold 58.5;
- copper 20;
- nickel 14.5;
- zinc 7.5.
The amount of impurities can vary up or down. Sometimes they even add natural platinum, which immediately affects the price.
A little about this test
750 standard is popular among jewelers and their clients. This is the most successful combination of the purity of a noble metal and ease of use: 999 standard is too soft to be worn constantly. However, a gold content of 75% is sufficient for the product to retain the inherent luster of pure gold.
Composition and properties
As can be understood from the name of the sample, 25% of the mass of our pendant or chain is made up of ligature (foreign metals). Impurities are added to gold primarily because the pure precious metal is extremely sensitive to damage. The 999.9 fine bank bullion can be scratched with a fingernail. This is unacceptable for jewelry that we wear on our bodies, so a ligature is added to gold to increase its wear resistance.
750 gold is common and contains the following additives in different proportions:
- copper (the main alloying component of most alloys);
- silver (also present almost everywhere);
- palladium (added to white gold);
- platinum (rare);
- nickel (rare).
Strength
The price to pay for the prestige of a high-grade alloy and its characteristic shine is the need to wear it carefully. 18K jewelry is easier to break than low-grade analogues.
Alloy shade chart
To understand what shade the alloy will give to gold, you need to look at the original color of the alloying metal. Often there are several additives. Let's look at the popular options for metal “cocktails”:
| Try | Color | Gold | Silver | Copper | Palladium |
| 18 carat | red | 75 % | 40 % | 21 % | No |
| 18 carat | pink | 75 % | 12,5 % | 12,5 % | No |
| 18 carat | yellow | 75 % | 17 % | 8 % | No |
| 18 carat | greenish | 75 % | 25 % | No | No |
| 18 carat | white | 75 % | 5 % | No | 20 % |
Brand
In addition to the hallmark, each piece of jewelry must have an imprint of the name of the manufacturer. The name plate is registered by a branch of the Assay Chamber under the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation and contains encrypted information about the year of manufacture of the jewelry and the factory.
The 18-carat ring produced by the Russian factory will be marked 750.
Measuring metal weight
The term "carat" is used to refer to the weight of jewelry. When evaluating a diamond, it is customary to use the carob acacia grain, which weighs 200 milligrams, as a unit of weight. This indicator is one carat.
This measurement is used in some Western countries to determine the weight of both precious stones and gold. The carat in this case does not show the mass of the product, but the amount of precious metal in relation to the filler material (ligature). In the West, silver is used as an admixture, while our masters typically include copper. It is because of these components that one can often notice the difference in shades of precious jewelry.
The use of platinum, silver or palladium as impurities gives the alloy a light tint. Thanks to this, the compound received the name white gold. Such metals are considered noble, and therefore their prices are higher. Nickel and copper belong to the group of cheap components , so the cost of products using them is reduced. However, it should be noted that copper improves the wear resistance of the alloy, and this has a beneficial effect on the operation of the final product.
Difference between 14 and 18 carats
18K is considered an elite grade. 14K (585 standard) is worn mainly as an everyday option, saving the expensive 750 standard for special occasions.
Cleanliness, hardness and durability
The more alloys in the alloy, the more pronounced the properties of the alloying components. 585 sample, consisting of almost half of impurities, is much lighter, harder and stronger than 750 sample, and is less susceptible to minor damage such as scratches or dents.
Color
The color of pure gold is bright yellow. An alloy containing a lot of copper takes on a reddish tint (pure copper has a rich brick-pink color). Green gold is coming into fashion, which contains no copper at all, but a lot of silver.
Many jewelers use the rhodium plating technique in their work - coating products with a thin (1.5–25 microns) layer of rhodium (a rare platinum group metal, many times harder than gold). Rhodium-plated jewelry can be not only the classic yellow, pink and white colors, but also black.
Markings
¾ gold items are marked o (units of measurement are indicated after the numbers). In Europe, such a ring will most likely have two marks at once: carat and metric (750).
Price
In Arab countries, you can find jewelry positioned by sellers as almost pure gold, but the reliability of these assurances is questionable.
Expert opinion
Vsevolod Kozlovsky
6 years in jewelry making. Knows everything about samples and can identify a fake in 12 seconds
Therefore, 750 is the highest of jewelry standards, given that 958 turned out to be unsuccessful in terms of price and quality. It is also the most expensive: in Russian stores such jewelry costs on average 1.13 times more than standard 14-karat jewelry. If you go to pawn shops and try to sell such metal as scrap, it will be valued at 1.25 times higher than 14-karat.
Authenticity of the mark
Of course, you should pay attention not only to the digital designation when purchasing a product, but also to the shape. Each country of origin has its own stamp forms. On Russian objects, the symbols are made in the form of a female profile or in the form of a hammer and sickle on a five-pointed star. How to check whether your product has a genuine mark and hallmark or not. To do this, you need to clean the surface of the jewelry and apply it in a special way so that strips of metal remain on it. After that, chemical reagents are applied to them one by one, each of which is intended for a specific type of alloy. Today on the Russian market there are reagents for all possible alloys. If the content of the metal in question in the alloy is as specified, the color of the yellow streaks will not change and they will not disappear. If the gold stripes completely disappear, this indicates that there is no metal in the product at all.
What to consider when purchasing products
In order for the jewelry to please you for a long time, do not make emotional purchases. Consider where you plan to wear your new item. 18-karat gold is suitable for festive outfits and for everyday wear, if it is gentle.
How to distinguish gold from gilding
- Pay attention to the brand. There are no hallmarks that indicate gold plating, and a silver ring that is plated with gold will be marked as sterling silver (875 or 925 fineness).
- Try scratching the item with a thin needle. If there is base metal underneath the gold plating, the scratch will be darker than the surface.
- Stores sometimes have assay needle sets available - you can ask the seller to make sure that the gold is real, or contact a pawnshop with this request.
- You can understand that the jewelry is fake without checking it. If you have worn it for several days or weeks and it has darkened, it is definitely not gold.
Below watch a visual video on how to distinguish a fake:
Why high purity is not always good
A high standard imposes restrictions on the wearer. It is better to go for things with a carat content below 18 if you:
- you buy jewelry that you want to always wear (for example, to decorate your neck on a mountain hike);
- you are choosing a gift for a child who, due to his age, will not be able to handle it carefully.
Why are low carats bad?
Low-grade gold is inferior in beauty to high-grade gold. It shines duller and looks cheaper. This is not so noticeable when you are wearing one piece of jewelry, but a set of several pieces of different grades will look uneven and give off a low-carat element.
Nickel allergy
Sometimes (infrequently) nickel is present in multicomponent jewelry alloys. Gold items (especially high-ligature ones) can become an allergen if they contain nickel.
The only way out of the situation is not to wear alloys containing nickel. Humanity has not yet learned to cure allergies. Medicine either uses drugs to suppress symptoms or recommends avoiding the allergen. If your body recognizes nickel as a danger, you should take a closer look at jewelry without it.
Benefits of white gold
One of the most important advantages of jewelry made from white gold is its very high strength and wear resistance. Rings, bracelets and earrings made of precious white alloy are very resistant to deformation, scratches, and retain their attractive appearance for a very long time. And all this is achieved by adding a harder alloy to the red metal. Rhodium plating of white gold products deserves special attention, as it provides the alloy with additional hardness and excellent performance characteristics.
TOP 5 ways to maintain the external gloss of 750-sterling jewelry
Caring for 750 grade jewelry and 585 grade jewelry is different. It is necessary to study the question of how to clean and polish products in order to maintain its attractiveness. TOP 5 important nuances:
- Do not allow the gold alloy to come into contact with chemicals. To do this, you need to remove jewelry before doing household chores, applying cosmetics, or taking a bath or shower.
- It is necessary to minimize contact of the precious metal with human sweat. You should not wear gold jewelry while playing sports.
- You can maintain the shine of your jewelry using wool or felt: you need to periodically rub the items without making significant effort.
- To care for jewelry, use a soap solution with the addition of a few drops of ammonia. This will help maintain shine.
- To preserve items, use a box in which jewelry can be kept separately from others, and on a soft backing.
750 gold ring
The price of white gold when delivered to a pawnshop
The pawnshop's tariff is set for each sample and does not change in any way depending on the color of the precious metal. The estimated cost of white gold jewelry will be exactly the same as other colors of the same standard. A commodity expert does not evaluate the beauty of your product; the value for it is only the precious metal. You can read more about this in the article “How a pawnshop works.”
The price of gold depends on the international precious metals market. You can read how easy it is to calculate it yourself in the article “How much is gold worth today.”
At the time of writing, pawnshops accept 585 sample at a price of about 1,400 rubles per gram, 750 sample at 1,800 rubles per gram.
Sources
- https://VseoZolote.ru/interesno/skolko-stoit-beloe-zoloto.html
- https://ToZoloto.ru/grafiki/kotirovki/tsena-na-beloe-zoloto.html
- https://prozoloto.com/zoloto/cena-belogo-zolota/
- https://zhazhdazolota.ru/proby/beloe-zoloto-585-proby
- https://ProDragmetally.ru/rynok/kotirovki-i-tseny/beloe-zoloto.html
- https://golden-inform.ru/proby/beloe-zoloto-585/
- https://ZolotoBlog.ru/beloe-zoloto-cena-svojstva.html
- https://gold24.ru/metal/gold-white
- https://www.region-zoloto.ru/beloe-zoloto
Price for purchasing white gold – price per 1 gram of metal
The price per gram of White gold depends on the fineness (number of carats) in the product. There are three most common types of samples:
- 9 carats – 375 standard;
- 14 carats – 585 (583) sample;
- 18 carat – 750 standard.
The price is indicated in Russian rubles per 1 gram of precious metal.
Samples Cost per gram of precious metal delivered Scrap
| 375 sample | 1506₽ | 1538₽ | 1571₽ |
| 500 sample | 2009₽ | 2051₽ | 2094₽ |
| 585/583/14K sample | 2350₽ | 2400₽ | 2450₽ |
| 750/18K sample | 3013₽ | 3077₽ | 3141₽ |
| 850/dentistry sample | 3415₽ | 3487₽ | 3560₽ |
| 900 sample | 3615₽ | 3692₽ | 3769₽ |
| 916/22K standard | 3680₽ | 3758₽ | 3836₽ |
| 958/23K standard | 3848₽ | 3930₽ | 4012₽ |
| 999 sample | 4015₽ | 4100₽ | 4185₽ |
