Anyone who has ever worn real gold jewelry, knows the qualities of the material particularly appreciates. Real gold is durable, stable, robust and resistant. Its color is permanently preserved and real gold jewelry does not oxidize. “Oxidizing” means the so-called tarnishing of jewelry, which is the case with silver over time. The surface reacts with the air and triggers a chemical reaction. The result is an unsightly coating. In that case, refurbishing is necessary. Real gold does not have this property, so you will have many years of enjoyment from real gold jewelry.
Let yourself be inspired by the unique look and the warm color nuances that come with real gold jewelry and find your personal unique piece in our assortment. We have compiled everything you need to know about real gold in the following article.
The differences of different real gold jewelry
Genuine gold jewelry is not made entirely of gold, but comes with a different fineness. Usually, the material is mixed (alloyed) with copper and silver in certain proportions to guarantee hardness, strength and polishability. The reason for this is simple: pure fine gold is very soft and would thus not be useful for everyday wear without further additions. Of course, genuine gold jewelry is still made mostly of gold. How high the fine gold content is, can be recognized by the marking like 750 gold or 585 gold.
Unlike real gold with its alloys, gold-plated jewelry is merely covered with a very thin layer of gold that wears off after a certain amount of time.
This means the number of fineness in real gold jewelry
As mentioned earlier, you can read the percentage of gold (fine gold) in your genuine gold jewelry by looking at the numbers. 750 means that about 75% of the material is gold and the remaining 25% is an alloy, which can vary depending on the color you want. The smaller the fineness number becomes, the lower the percentage of gold in the Genuine Gold Jewelry. The proportions of alloys are regulated uniformly. The fineness is usually incorporated as a small stamp in the real gold jewelry.
The fine gold content in the overview:
– 999 gold /99.9% (24 carat gold) – too soft for jewelry
– 916 gold /91.6% (22 carat gold) – too soft for jewelry
– 750 gold/75 % (18 carat gold) with 75 % fine gold and 25 % silver/copper
– 585 gold/ 58.5 % (14 carat gold) with 58.5 % fine gold and 41.5 % silver/copper
– 375 gold/ 37.5 % (9 carat gold) with 37.5 % fine gold and 62.5 % silver/copper/zinc/tin
In addition, there is 333 gold in Germany. However, the jewelry in this case may not be called real gold jewelry, because the gold content is too low. The lower the fineness of the real gold jewelry, the lower the price, because gold is one of the most expensive and precious raw materials. For laymen, it is difficult to tell the difference between alloys. Orientation about the fine gold content of the real gold jewelry offers in the case of the fineness stamp.
Different alloys of gold
With the alloy gold becomes not only harder and more robust – furthermore, you can conjure up different colors for real gold jewelry with the additions, which has become visibly more popular in recent years.
In real gold jewelry with a fine gold content of 75%, the yellow gold looks particularly warm, while in 375 real gold jewelry it is somewhat more discreet in the background. Often, the color difference is remedied with gold plating, but this wears off over time. For a modern and elegant rose gold jewelry, more copper is added to the alloy for real gold jewelry than silver. This is how the color gains its reddish hue. Really strong, reddish nuances are created in the production of red gold, where the copper content is even more.
Real gold jewelry in white gold consists of an alloy of precious metals such as palladium, platinum or silver. With these admixtures, the yellow tint is removed from the gold and the cool white gold tone is created. To intensify the color of white gold jewelry and make the surface more resistant, it is usually coated with a layer of rhodium.High quality real gold jewelry in white gold is created by adding platinum.
How to recognize real gold jewelry?
Since time immemorial, the material gold has fascinated people and in addition to the production of genuine gold jewelry, is also used, among other things, for the production of gold bars, which are considered precious and crisis-proof investment assets. Gold is a finite resource and limited, which is one of the reasons for its high value. Scrap gold, unused Genuine Gold Jewelry, is therefore extensively recycled today. Furthermore, in addition to genuine gold jewelry, gold plating, in which silver is coated with a fine layer of gold, has become established. Gold plating has the disadvantage that the top layer wears off over time.
If you look at the history of genuine gold jewelry, the production of fake gold also started early. Over time, some methods developed to determine the authenticity of genuine gold jewelry. And don’t worry, you don’t have to bite on it like gold prospectors once did to convince themselves of the authenticity of gold nuggets today.
– Visual inspection: Check the stamp print with the fineness grade. But be careful, this can also be present on fakes and appear deceptively genuine. With older jewelry, it is not uncommon that it can hardly be recognized.
– Reaction of the skin: Genuine gold jewelry usually does not react with the skin, as can be the case with silver. This results in greenish or black discoloration on the skin. However, due to the alloy, real gold jewelry can sometimes cause skin changes as well.
– Abrasion test: Drag the jewelry over unglazed ceramic such as the kitchen tile. Real gold leaves a delicate gold trace.
– Water test: Place your genuine gold jewelry in a glass of water. If it sinks, it is almost certainly genuine gold.
The most reliable way to determine real gold is at a jeweler. They work with special test procedures and can tell you 100% whether it is real gold jewelry. Everything that falls below the minimum percentage of 33% or 8 carats is not considered real gold.
With our gold jewelry from VIVA you can of course be sure that we use real gold. For this you get a guarantee from us. The raw material for our collections we get from recycled gold. So you wear your VIVA real gold jewelry with a real good feeling.
If you have any further questions about real gold jewelry, please feel free to contact us at any time. We are looking forward to your message.