GOLD
24k Pure Gold
22k Gold
Gold has been the primary metal in jewellery for over 5000 years. Unlike most of the other metals, Pure gold does not oxidise and tarnish forever. You can melt gold but it will always retain the original yellowish colour.
Gold however is a soft metal and jewellery made of pure gold will change the shape easily. In addition pure gold will not hold stones firmly. Therefore gold is mixed with copper, silver or palladium to create an alloy depending on the required colour. The most popular colours Australia are white gold, yellow gold and rose gold. It is also possible to obtain black and green colours as well.
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Carat or Karat(KT) In the USA, is purity measurement unit of gold in alloys that contain gold. It is not the weight of the jewellery. Pure gold has 24 carats. An18 carat ring contains 75% (18/24%) of pure gold and 25% of other metals. Jewellers use hallmarks to indicate this number. There are 2 popular types of hallmarks. Most popular hallmark shows the gold amount in 1000th of a carat. The other hallmark is number of carats followed by letters KT. Very rarely you may see a hallmark with letters KP (18KP). This means 18 carat plum gold or minimum gold.
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It is important not to get confused by hallmarks such as 18 KGP or 18KRG. These indicate gold plated jewellery and rolled gold jewellery. It is also important to know that in Australia, jewellery with less than 9 carats of gold are not considered as gold jewellery.
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White Gold
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White gold is the most popular gold colour among Australians today.
White gold is typically made using Gold, Platinum, Palladium and Zinc. At DesignGold we finish white Gold jewellery with Rhodium plating. In addition to protecting the alloy, Rhodium plating gives a beautiful white shine to your jewellery. Today white gold is more expensive than even pure gold because Rhodium and palladium are more expensive than pure gold. In fact rhodium can be 10 times more expensive than pure gold.
Usually white gold tends to reflect more light than other gold colours and therefore may compliment diamonds more than other colours.
18k White gold
18k Rose Gold
18k Yellow Gold
Rose gold and Yellow Gold
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Both of these colours are obtained by combining Gold, Copper and Silver. Typically a 22 carat piece of jewellery are more yellower than an 18 carat piece. Rose gold has more copper than silver.
Bright yellow jewellery are more popular in eastern and middle eastern countries than in western countries. Nevertheless there are a few advantages to choosing a yellow colour in jewellery than any other colours. Historically yellow gold is the most popular metal colour used in jewellery and ideal for old style settings. Yellow gold is the closet colour to pure gold and you undoubtedly will give the impression that you are wearing gold. In addition yellow gold is the easiest to maintain out of all three gold colour types. Yellow gold tends to complement tanned skin tones and easily matched with many colours of stones such as sapphires.
At DesignGold we are happy make jewellery in any of the above colours including a combination of colours for you. A white gold ring inlaid with rose gold can be very beautiful.
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Platinum
Platinum is a natural white metal and not easily tarnished. Although there are evidence that Platinum has been used in jewellery for over 2000 years unlike Gold, only recently it has become only widely popular.
While platinum is used in manufacturing alloys for gold jewellery, gold is not used when making alloys for platinum jewellery. Although platinum is stronger metal than Gold pure platinum jewellery can get damaged by normal day to day use. Therefore platinum is usually alloyed with .copper and cobalt increase the strength
copper and cobalt are commonly alloyed with platinum to optimise its working characteristics and wear properties. While many jewellers use 85% of platinum, At DesignGold we use 95% of Platinum alloyed with 5% of cobalt and copper.
Only a highly skilled master jewellers tend to work with Platinum as it has a higher melting point than Gold or gold alloys. In addition the equipment and the working environment needs to highly clean as even residue gold can be an impurity when working with Platinum. Our master jeweller Vas Dharmawardhane has over 30 years experience in the jewellery industry and we are happy to make your next masterpiece of Platinum jewellery.
