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Gold Facts

Colors of Gold:
Gold is a mixture of gold, silver and copper. Too much silver will provide a greenish tint and too much copper will provide a reddish tint resulting in rose gold.
The addition of Nickel will overpower the yellowish tint of gold, with the result being white gold.

Gold Purity:
The purity of gold can be described by the following three methods: Rolled Gold Plate (RGP):
Jewelry that has a 14K R.G.P. mark is not a 14 karat gold piece of jewelry. The R.G.P. stands for rolled gold plate (RGP). RGP is the applying a layer of gold alloy to a layer of base metal with the gold alloy having some Karat rating such as: 14K. Rolled gold plating were popular in the 1800s and 1900s.

Vermeil:
This is gold plating of some type over sterling silver.

Gold Leaf:
24K gold that is formed into sheets that is then applied over a surface by hand.

The letter "P":
"P" may be found following the karat designation on a jewelry item, i.e.:14KP. The letter "P" represents the word plumb, plumb indicates that the gold content is not less than 14 Karat.

HGE is Heavy Gold Electroplate - not solid gold.

Gold Filled is marked to show, a gold layer on the outside of a base metal. For example, the mark 1/12 14kGF. This means the gold layer is 14k and the gold is 1/20 the weight of the total metal in the item.

Silver Facts:

Sterling Silver jewelry is often marked 925 or .925 (92.5% fine silver)
Other silver jewelry hallmarks include .800, .813, .875, .935, .980 or other number variations that depend upon the represent the silver content
European countries also use a variety of other symbols to mark silver jewelry and non-jewelry items.

These marks can be used in conjunction with purity or other designations.
England: the walking lion
Scotland: the thistle, before 1975
Russia: hammer and sickle in star mark
Sweden: "S" (in hexagon indicating 830 silver or higher)
France: a boar’s head (from 1838 to 1961) and outside of Paris, the crab mark
etc.

Platinum Facts

Platinum or PLAT if the jewelry is .950 or 95% or more platinum.
Other marks are Pt1000, 1000Pt or 1000Plat for pure platinum; or Pt950, 950Pt.

If less than 95%, the mix is shown such as 10% IRID PLAT, meaning the item is 90% platinum and 10% iridium (Iridium is actually more expensive than platinum). Also you will sometimes see imported items with 800 PLAT, 80% platinum popular in a few foreign countries.
    Karat Rating   Percent        Formula Calculation Steps One to Three to Find Gold's Market Value:

1st) 31.1034 grams or ONE ounce of 14K gold
2nd) 31.1034 times 58.33% (14K) equals 18.1426 grams of gold
3rd) Suggested Gold Market value of $800 divided by 31.1034 grams equals $25.72 per gram.

Calculated Step Four to Find Value of 14K:

4th) 18.1426 grams times $25.72 equals $466.63 of Gold value.

Step 5: Your Return on 14K Gold Sold to Refiner:

5th) $466.67 times refiner percentage to you 94% equals return to you $438.67.

Or Use This Precious Metal Calculator from Dendritics