Understanding Gold Markings

Before you decide to sell your old jewelry it is a good idea to make sure you have fully evaluated the worth of the gold. One way of doing so is by researching and understanding what the gold markings actually mean. This will give you a clear understanding of the purity of the gold and therefore what you should expect to receive for it. A lot of less reputable cash for gold dealers rely on the fact that most people do not actually know much about gold purity and the implications of purity on pricing.

Gold Markings Indicate Karatage

The gold's purity is measured in karats and the gold markings are indicators of the karatage. The karatage is essentially the percentage of pure and unalloyed gold within the resultant gold alloy. Pure gold is too soft and malleable to be used to make jewelry and therefore it is necessary to alloy it with other metals such as copper or silver. Karats range from 24 karat gold which is pure gold to below 10 karat. Generally speaking the majority of gold jewelry sold in the US or UK is 18 karat gold which means it is 75% pure gold and 25% other metals. Other nationalities have different tastes in gold with a lot of Middle Eastern or Asian countries preferring the yellowness of higher karat yellow gold.

Locating Gold Markings on Your Jewelry

In order to understand the purity of your gold it is time to locate the gold markings on your piece of jewelry. Somewhere on your piece of jewelry you should be able to locate one of the gold markings which has a number followed by a k. If it is a bracelet or a necklace often the gold markings can be located on a clasp or link on the piece of jewelry. Gold markings differ on jewelry in the US as opposed to jewelry in Europe.

In the US jewelry is marked with the karat number, for example 18 followed by a k which indicates that it is 18k. In Europe it is a little more confusing as the gold markings indicate the percentage of purity. Therefore an 18k jewelry piece in Europe will have 750 stamped on it to indicate that it is 75% pure. The general rule of thumb is that the higher the number the purer the gold. The higher the purity of gold then ultimately the greater the price you should expect to receive if you sell it to a gold buyer.

Gold markings are not just stamped on yellow gold. They are also found on other colors of gold such as white gold or rose gold. These also have a percentage of gold within them as does yellow gold. The difference is that they have been alloyed with other metals. This does not in any way detract from the gold content. Most white gold jewelry is 18 karats and therefore in the US you should expect to see an 18 k gold marking on it and in Europe you should expect to see 750 stamped on it.

If you are not able to locate any gold markings on the jewelry then it is likely that the piece has been gold plated. As such it is not worth much at all to scrap gold buyers. If it is silver that has been gold plated this may be of interest to a scrap silver buyer. Gold plated jewelry tends to be of little interest to gold buyers as the cost of actually processing it and removing the impurities such as the other metals is simply too great for the amount of gold which can be processed.

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