About the Gold and Silver Jewelry

It may sound a bit of a surprise, but the tiffany jewelry  is not made of pure noble metals as in their original state they don often have the necessary properties. For instance, gold is too soft to work with. To give them the necessary mechanical properties and a wishful color nonferrous metals are brought into. Thus, we get different alloys, for example, that of gold with silver and copper, sometimes with palladium, nickel, zinc and cadmium. It is the precious metal content that determines the mark of quality.

In the USA, Britain and Switzerland the carat system is used. According to the carat system the 1000th mark of quality of the precious metal corresponds to 24 conventional units. In most European countries the metric system of the mark defining is used. It means that it is defined by the number of parts of the precious metal in 1000 weight units of the alloy.

The quality mark of precious metals alloys is set legislatively and is guaranteed by the state. All the jewelry necessarily undergoes the assay control to ensure it. As a result the mark of assay is put. The mark is defined by its digits. It up to a country to choose the form and the pattern of the mark of assay.

Very widely used in jewelry are 18k gold alloys as their properties are most suitable to work with. They contain: silver - 7,0%- 15,0% , palladium - up to 14%,
nickel - up to 4%, zinc up to 2,4%, nickel - 7,5% - 16,5%, zinc - 2,0% - 5,0%, copper - up to 15%.

Another popular alloy is 14k gold. The alloys of this standard can have different colors. The color is influenced by the qualitative ratio of the ferrous metals.
For instance, if 14k gold alloy (58, 3% - gold) contains silver? 36% and copper 5, 7% the alloy gets a greenish color. With silver- 18, 3% and copper -23, 4% - the pink one. With silver 8, 3% and copper 33, 4% - a reddish color.

The so-called white gold is often used in the jewelry with diamonds. The 14k white gold alloy contains: silver - 23, 7% - 28, 7%, palladium - 13, 0% - 18%, nickel -
17%, zinc - 8, 7%, copper - 16%. The 18k white gold alloy contains: silver - 7,0% - 15,0% , palladium - up to 14%, nickel - up to 4%, zinc up to 2,4%, nickel - 7,5% - 16,5%, zinc - 2,0% - 5,0%, copper - up to 15%.

The gold alloy of the 958th standard (metric system) or 24k is not durable and that is why rarely used. The gold alloy of the 375th standard or 10k contains: gold - 37, 5%, silver - 10, 0%, copper - 48%, palladium - 3, 8%. Jewelry containing less than 37.5% of gold is not considered gold jewelry.

The most widely used is the silver alloy containing 92.5% silver and 7.5% alloy. It is used for the tiffany jewelry and the cutlery. The silver and brass stuff is frequently covered with a thin layer of rhodium or silver of the 999th standard (silvering).