Gold is a chemical element with the symbol AU. Its finesse is measured in karats. The upper scale is 24 for 100%, hence 24 karat gold is the purest gold there is. Thus 18ct gold is 18/24, which makes its purity 75%.
Most gold that is used for jewellery is mixed with other elements in order to make it hardwearing and durable. In its purest form, gold is a strong and bright yellow colour. Not much jewellery will be set in 24 as the material would be extremely soft. These additional elements also affect the colour of the gold. For example, the colour in white gold is caused by the presence of a white metal such as Nickel, palladium or magnesium. The pink in rose gold is caused when copper is introduced into the equation.
When valuing gold, the principle factor we look for is the hallmark. Your jewellery will feature a series of numbers which identify the finesse of gold. For example, 9ct gold is represented by 375, 14ct by 585 18ct by 750 and 916 for 22ct. British gold will feature an assay office mark, this tells you which assay office tested and hallmarked your item. A letter may be present, this represents the date which your item was assayed.
European gold (such as Italian gold) may simply be stamped 9k, 14k, 18k or 22k. In this case, as the full British hallmarks are missing, the gold will need to be tested. In many high street pawn brokers, this involves the destructive acid test. Here at unbolted, we use a top of the range gold analysing gun ensuring your gold is kept in excellent condition.
Asian Gold
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Asian gold has the highest finesse of gold purity and is often just stamped with 22k, if at all. In this case the gold must be tested in order to confirm the karat, the gold used in jewellery may sometimes test fractionally lower than 22karat, due to additional elements added to the gold to make it more durable to wear it. Nevertheless, it is still a high Karat. With many other pawnbrokers and asset lenders, the acids test will reveal a high karat, so the value will be based in between 18karat and 22karat.
Because our gold analyser gun reveals the exact purity percentage, we are able to value your gold fairly, and to the exact ratio, rather than make an approximation lower than the finesse. We also ensure that your precious wedding gold is not damaged by the process of the acid test.
Gold comes in other forms other than jewellery. We often see gold bars and coins. The value of these changes with the gold price on a daily basis. There are also gold coing, the most popular being Eagles, Maples, Kruggerands, Pandas, Prittannias, and Sovereigns.
