Gold, Silver and Platinum - Understanding the Purity Markings

Gold, silver and platinum are three of the most popular precious metals used today in jewelry, but most people don’t know how to judge the quality of the pieces they look at. Fortunately, each type of jewelry has a set of symbols that reveals its purity.

Gold

Since gold is a soft metal, it is usually mixed with other metals to produce an alloy. On American-made gold jewelry, look for a mark such as 10K, 14K or 18K. On European-made gold jewelry, look for a decimal, like.585,.750 or something similar. here’s what they indicate:

• 10K or.417 is 10 karat or 42% pure gold.


• 14K or.585 is 14 karat or 58% pure gold.


• 18K or.750 is 18 karat or 75% pure gold.


• 24K or.999 is 24 karat or 100% pure gold.

You might also find the following marks on gold jewelry:

• HGE (Heavy Gold Electroplate) indicates gold-plated jewelry.


• 1/8 18kGF, or a similar mark, would indicate gold-filled jewelry. In this example, the gold layer is 18 karat and makes up 1/8 of the total weight of the metal in the piece.

Silver

Silver is stronger than gold, and so silver jewelry is typically made with a high level of purity. The most common mark is.925, which designates the piece as sterling silver with 92.5% purity. Other marks you might see include.800,.813 and.999.

Vintage English silver jewelry may have a stamp of a walking lion to indicate.925 sterling.

Platinum

Like silver, platinum is a strong metal and platinum jewelry usually has a very high purity level. Any piece that is at least 95 percent pure can be marked simply as “platinum” or “950 Platinum”.

Jewelry that is slightly less pure can be marked with the content followed by “Plat.” or “Pt.”, as in “850Pt” or “900Plat”.

Jewelry that has at least 50% platinum content and at least 95% “platinum group metal” (platinum, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, or osmium) content can be marked as platinum jewelry, as long as the percentage of each metal is disclosed. For example: “700Pt. 150Pall. 100Irid.” would be a valid marking.

Source by Tom Webster

Gold, Silver and Platinum - Understanding the Purity Markings