A Lesson on Gold

Pure gold is rated as 24 karat. Alloys that are less than pure are rated with a karat rating proportional to the percent of pure gold in the alloy. For example a gold alloy that is 75% pure is rated with a value that is 75% of what is considered pure. So in this case, it’s 18 karat. Taking it further, you can calculate that 14 karat gold is approximately 58% pure. If you learned something from that explanation, you’re probably wondering… why not use pure gold? and what makes up the other percentage?

Jewelers use pure gold less often to make a complete piece because of 3 main reasons. A) Using 24kt gold makes the piece much more expensive. B) The color of pure gold is a bit too much for most people’s taste. It needs to be lightened up a bit. C) Pure gold is softer than the mixed alloys. That isn’t to say that it’s not hard. It’s still a metal, but it will be perhaps more susceptible to nicks, scratches, and dings.

Now that you understand the ‘why’, here’s what you’re probably more interested in knowing… Gold alloys that are less than 24 karat are mixed with other pure metals to physically harden it up and to soften its color. In the case of yellow gold, silver and copper is used. For white gold alloys, silver and palladium is what the recipe calls for. Different jewelers might add these metals in slightly different amounts, but the amount added in relation to the amount of gold used will determine the final karat rating. The mixture Embassy Emeralds uses for 18kt white gold is 10 grams 24kt gold alloyed with 1.65 grams each of both silver and palladium. When you do the math, you come up with 13.3 grams of 18kt gold, or a 75% pure alloy. The same amounts are used in the yellow gold recipe, but with pure copper used instead of palladium.

Some jewelers will take a cheaper path. They’ll use nickel and zinc in their alloys instead of the more expensive metals called for to make it a quality alloy. There are two big drawbacks to doing this and they mostly impact the end customer…. A) These cheaper metals are the ones that tend to cause allergic reactions and irritations. The reason pure gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper is used is due to their very low reactivity with other elements. If they don’t react with anything, they can’t oxidize easily or cause irritation. B) The alloy becomes brittle and difficult to work with after a while. Since the jeweler’s taking the cheap route, he’s also probably casting the piece instead of working the metal by hand. He’s not concerned about it, but imagine the customer who needs a resize or breaks a prong on a setting. It’s going to be a lot more difficult to work with.

With the rising price of gold, we can probably expect more of this in the market. It's unfortunate, but it's either that or significant price increases which have already begun industry wide as jewelers struggle to keep their revenues up enough to stay in line with the gold price increases and be able to afford new merchandise.

As you can see, there is more to your gold jewelry than you thought. But you shouldn’t have to think about it. It should be the quality you expect and not give you problems. Embassy Emeralds makes all of its gold jewelry in 18kt. We find it to be of excellent quality and appearance and ideal for most jewelry applications. We will however take requests to work in 14kt or 22kt gold on custom pieces.

Creating Custom Jewelry Is Not Difficult

Creating custom jewelry is not difficult. Actually it’s quite simple. In many cases, you’re simply designing the piece around the emerald you choose. It’s a whole lot easier to cast and shape metal to the size you need than it is to perfectly cut or select a stone that meets the exact dimensions of a premade setting. Let that soak in for a second, because it should relieve some anxiety you might have about doing this. And so with that being the case, you should be able to focus on simply selecting the emerald you want. You’ll also need to decide if there are any accent stones or materials you may desire, and work with the jeweler to get the design that works for you. Most of the time, people have an idea in mind or at least certain features, but if not, an experienced jeweler can help walk you through the completion of the design. Except for telling him/her what you want, leave the sourcing of the accent stones and metals to the jeweler. They’ll be able to obtain what your piece requires.

One of the reasons you may be into making custom jewelry or enhancing and repairing what you have is the cost factor. In most cases it can be significantly cheaper to make your own jewelry piece than it would be to buy it already made from the jewelry store. It is easy for us to imagine a cost savings of 20-50%, but maybe as high as 70% of what you’d expect to pay. Some of this savings depends on the complexity of the design, your ability to find bargains, the jeweler you choose, and other factors, but a nice cost savings should be in possible for anyone to achieve and you’ll end up with a higher quality piece. It makes you wonder why more people don’t choose the custom option. The best explanation we can come up with is that many people don’t know where to start; they don’t feel they have the time to have a piece made, maybe they don’t know about how much they could save, or they don’t understand how the process would work and how easy it would be. Another possibility is they don’t have the patience to wait 2 or 3 weeks for their piece to be made. It’s unfortunate, because all it takes to get started is to buy the stone you want and visit the yellow pages online and search for jeweler, jewelry design, or custom jewelry.

Learn more about custom jewelry settings at Embassy Emeralds