14 Mar Understanding Gold

There is something about the precious metal we know as gold that screams fashion, wealth, and elegance.

Surprising to many would be the fact that all gold is not equal. In fact, this precious metal comes in several different levels of purity. Purity of gold is measured in karats. The higher the karat, the higher the purity.

The most common forms of gold we see today range from 24k to 10k. To most, this may seem to have little importance. It is only when you truly understand gold and its purity levels that you will begin to see why it is so important to understand how karats are measured.

24k gold is pure gold. While this may seem like the way to go when you are selecting your jewelry, that may not always be the case. When it comes to gold, the pure form is much too difficult to work with, especially when trying to create jewelry.

Gold is a rather soft metal and it can easily dent, scratch, and become malformed in its pure form. On top of that, it comes at a very high price point. More cost for less durability does not sound like a fair deal to the team at The Sultan and I am sure that you will agree.

The solution to this problem is actually quite simple. Instead of gold being used in its pure form, jewelers tend to go for gold that has been alloyed with other metals. This makes the gold become not only more durable, but also creates enhanced color as well as the ability to add a variety of different colors into the metal. This may lower the karat grade, but the luxurious results this process produces more than outweigh the loss of purity.

Check out the proof in these beautiful pieces.

It’s important that you know what purity will work best for your needs, especially with custom pieces. You likely will not want pure gold, but at the same time, you do not want to be tricked into buying a piece of jewelry that has hardly any gold in it. The easiest way to make the right selection is to know how much gold is contained within each karat grade.

Here at The Sultan, we primarily use 18k as well as 14k gold on our pieces. These karat grades come in line right behind 24k. In reality, they are almost pure, yet easy to work with and they offer an amazing amount of durability.

18k gold is 75% pure with just 25% consisting of other metals while 14k comes in at slightly over half pure. After these two grades comes 10k which is much less than half pure. However, this is not something that you will ever find at our shop because it is extremely low in purity and we take pride in providing quality pieces. We’re not in the business of ripping off our customers. Our integrity will never allow us to sell something that is borderline fake. Anything below 10k cannot even legally be labeled or sold as gold due its lack of purity.

Even though we offer both 18k and 14k gold, we like to focus more on 18k because we love to provide our customers with nothing less than the best. Pristine quality is what we do, and we do it well!

Now that you understand gold and karats a little better, you’ll be able to make a much more informed decision the next time you treat yourself to some luxurious custom-made jewelry.

Why not get started now and browse The Sultan’s collection of high-end jewelry? Get started here!