Gold jewelery: what are the carats?

The ' gold is definitely one of the most precious materials and widespread in jewelry is used to make wedding rings, necklaces, bracelets and various jewelry.

Since ancient times it was used to make precious products to donate to Queens, Emperors and Nobles. Do you also have a passion for gold jewelery ? So today we will talk about its characteristics and above all the carats .

Would you like to know more? Then keep reading!

Carati, gold: between evaluation and quotation … what is there to know?
As you know, gold jewelry is not all the same: weight, size, color also depends on and above all on one aspect, the carat .

The word " carato " has always been used to indicate a measure of gems and precious materials: once the seeds of the carob tree were taken as reference (which in Greek translates into kerátion ) because they all had the same weight (about half a gram).

To weigh the pure gold is then made reference to these seeds. Today the Carat is used to establish two types of measurement:

Mass measurement
Size measurement
MASS MEASURE

The carat has been used since the Middle Ages to weigh small quantities of materials and precious stones. But only in 1832 was the weight of a Carat defined:

1 Karate or Carat = 0.2 Grams

PURITY MEASURE

Since gold is a very malleable and weak material, it can not be used alone for making jewels, as they could easily break or bend. In order to make them durable and durable, gold is bonded to other, harder metals: jewelery made of alloys is born. Generally gold is combined with materials such as copper, palladium or silver.

This is why when we talk about gold jewelery , the carat takes on an additional meaning compared to the weight unit; that is, it also refers to purity, or the amount of gold present in an alloy. The higher the gold, the greater the purity of the jewel.

The purity (carat) is calculated in twenty-four :

1 Carat or Karato = 1 part of gold on 24 parts of metal forming the alloy

Why is the reference number for purity 24? There is also an explanation for this: this derives from an ancient pure gold coin used thousands of years ago in Germany. This weighed 24 carats, or 4.8 grams. Its composition is its weight was taken as a reference point to evaluate the purity of gold jewelry.

A jewel with 24 carats (generally expressed as 24K) is the purest on the market, because they correspond to 999.9 gr. of gold on 1000 gr. This type of gold is not used because the gold is soft and tends to deform easily