THE COLOR OF GOLD...Consumer Guide to All That Is Gold

GOLD...GOLD...WE FOUND GOLD!!!

More than any other word in the English language, the little four letter word "gold" conjures up images like no other. Images of Midas, Solomon, grizzled old bearded men swishing silt in a pan along a stream, bricks of gleaming ore stacked high in Fort Knox, rich burnished yellow shimmering in sunlight?.gold in every form has fired the imagination of wealth and riches for four millennia. Even school children know what it is and is there anyone anywhere in the civilized world who can hear "14 or 18 karat" and not immediately think "gold" and imagine jewelry? It is the most commonly used metal in making fine, and sometimes not so fine, jewelry. But how many know that gold can come in scores of colors and shades, a half dozen degrees of fineness, or that pure gold is so soft it can be bent and broken between the fingers and almost never is used to make jewelry?

CARROTS, CARATS, AND KARATS

Everyone knows the little yellow-orange cluster of things sitting between the fresh spinach and clumps of broccoli in the supermarket display are carrots. Most know that a carat is related to diamonds and think it has something to do with the size of the stone. It is and it does not. And as for karats, no it is not a German spelling of carat. Assuming there is no confusion about carrots, let's put carat where it belongs. Most people think the word "carat" refers to the size of a gemstone but it really describes the weight of a stone. A perfectly proportioned (round) 1 carat diamond is 6.50mm wide. But it is also possible for a 1-carat diamond to be 6mm or 7mm wide because of the depth of the stones. When most of us think of a 1-carat stone, we have a mental image of a stone that is that perfect gem....6.50mm in size. That's just the way we all think and that is the way all jewelry settings are calibrated, too, because of these mental images we all have of gemstone sizes based on standard diamond carat weights.

Rubies do not weigh the same as diamonds, and emeralds do not weigh the same as either rubies or diamonds. A 6.5mm diamond weighs 1 carat, a 6.5mm emerald weighs 8/10 carat, and a beautiful 6.5mm Moissanite weighs 9/10 carat. But ask anyone to picture the size of a 1-carat emerald, diamond or Moissanite, and they will imagine exactly the same size for each gem. The following image illustrates what we are saying here.

Unlike the carat that refers to the weight of a gemstone, the proportion of gold used in making fine jewelry is measured in terms of karats. The word karat comes from the carob seed, which was originally used to balance scales in ancient bazaars. Pure gold is designated 24 karat, which indicates the fineness of the gold or degree of dilution with added alloys. ...more