Selling Your Gold? Get the Best Value Out of Your Gold
Gold is a highly prized asset, and is always in demand. Since gold has high electrical conductivity, it has many industrial uses. Gold is a tangible monetary asset and is used as an investment tool and a store of value in countries with unstable currencies. Gold is traded globally and enjoys high liquidity.
Gold is commonly used in jewellery for many reasons. Gold is valuable because it is rare and does not tarnish. Gold alloys with other metals to create gold jewellery of different colours e.g. 9k, 14k, 18k, 22k jewellery. Gold is easy to work with because of its physical properties. It can be hammered into thin sheets, drawn into wire and worked into intricate designs. Gold can also be melted and cast into any shape. Its distinct yellow colour and brilliant lustre has made it a very memorable metal throughout history and mankind’s fondness of gold continues to grow today.
PURITY
The karat system is commonly used to represent the purity of gold. A higher karat number suggests higher purity in your gold jewellery. There may be a reason for a particular karat number being used in your gold jewellery. For example, 18k gold, which is 75% gold with 6 other parts of metal(s), allow variations in colour, for example, yellow, white & rose. Keep in mind that 10k is the minimum karat that qualifies an item as “gold” in the United States.
| KARAT | DESCRIPTION |
| 24k | Pure gold. |
| 22k | 22 parts gold & 2 parts of one or more additional metal(s), making it 91.6% gold. |
| 20k | 20 parts gold & 4 parts of one or more additional metal(s), making it 83.3% gold. |
| 18k | 18 parts gold & 6 parts of one or more additional metal(s), making it 75% gold. |
| 14k | 14 parts gold & 10 parts of one or more additional metal(s), making it 58.3% gold. |
| 10k | 10 parts gold & 14 parts of one or more additional metal(s), making it 41.7% gold.
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COLOUR
The colour of gold depends on the type of metal alloys used.
YELLOW GOLD
In its purest form, gold has a metallic lustre, is shiny on a clean face and has a yellowish colour. However, pure gold is never used in jewellery because pure gold is too soft. Pure gold is alloyed with other metals like silver, copper and zinc to create yellow gold. Once alloyed, gold becomes durable and is used in jewellery.
WHITE GOLD
White gold is very popular in contemporary jewellery. It has a wide appeal among consumers because of its silvery white appearance. To create white gold, pure gold is alloyed with small amounts of other metal like zinc, nickel or and copper. It is then plated with rhodium.
ROSE GOLD
Rose gold is a term used to describe gold alloyed with copper. Since copper has a reddish hue,varying proportions of copper with gold gives gold a pinkish look. Other names of gold and copper alloys are pink gold and red gold.