Gold Cartage

The cartage of gold can be considered its most important and best selling aspect. Carats, sometimes spelled Karats, measure the purity of gold. Gold is one of the world’s most beautiful precious metals, and powerfully resistant to corrosion, but on its own pure gold is very soft and vulnerable. To make jewelry and other commonly consumed gold products, gold is combined with other materials to overcome its soft nature and make it durable enough for everyday use. This is when carats come in, the higher a carat rating on a piece of gold, the higher “percentage” of that piece is pure gold. Here’s a chart published by the World Gold Council detailing the percentages of gold carats:



24 carat gold is understood to be the most pure of all gold, consisting in 99% gold and only 1% other material. This is the minimum carat allowed for jewelry labeled as “pure gold”.

22 carats is considered to be 91.6% gold, and is quite popular in India where a large majority of the world’s gold is consumed.

14 carat can be seen in the US as a common selling gold carat, however anything lower than 10 carats is not allowed to be sold as gold.

source: http://www.gold.org/jewellery/about_gold_jewellery/caratage/

What's A Karat?

Many people own gold that is 18k, or even 24k gold. But knowing how much your gold is worth comes in knowing what the “k” in your gold really stands for. The “k” that is usually found at the end of a number describing jewelry’s that contain precious metals stands for the word “karat”. The word Karat stands for the purity of the gold inside your jewelry. Pure gold happens to be the softest metal in the world, and thus not very ideal for most jewelry. Jewelry that is commonly found for sale and used by many people is jewelry that contains gold but is also combined with other metals and alloys for stability. That is why your Karat amount is important, because it is used to determine how much of your jewelry has been combined with alloys and how much is actually pure gold.

A lot of starting line gold is measured in 10k, while the highest end of gold is 24k. As you can see by the chart, a piece of jewelry that is 10k gold is about 41.67% gold, then the rest is various combinations of other alloys. However, a piece that is 24k gold is 99.95% pure gold, that is why these pieces are generally the highest in value!

We hope this chart has helped with useful insights on how you can learn more about your gold. And remember, just because your jewelry is broken or unwanted, doesn’t mean they still don’t have value. You can visit Cash 4 Gold at www.cash4gold.com and request your free and insured pack to send in your broken or unwanted gold for real, fast, cash.