Gold and Diamond in Jewelry

With the Jewelry Sales growing by leaps and bounds all over the world, a novice might just get confused with the staggering amount of details provided while purchasing a piece of jewelry – be it Rings, Earrings, Pendants, Bracelet, Bangles or Necklaces.

Especially in Diamond Jewelry, there is so much information given by sellers to attract transparency, but those who are not having the know-how will just not know what this information means. Thus, this article is for novices who do not know the different types of diamonds or what the different gold karats stand for.
Let us first start with the various gold karats used in Jewelry:
Different countries have their own preferences in the use of gold in Diamond Jewelry. Countries like USA prefer 9kt, 10kt or 14kt Gold, whereas in UK the Gold needs to be Nickel Free, in European Countries it needs to be of 585 karat, and in India there is a major use of 18kt Gold.

So how this gold karat is exactly determined, as we all know that gold has a purity of 24 karat. We all know that a karat is a measure of determining the purity of gold. 24 karat gold is the most pure and thus will be most expensive. Since 24 karat gold is too soft for making jewelry, it needs to be hardened by mixing some other metal alloys. More the alloys mixed, lesser will be the purity of gold. For jewelry, 18 karat gold is the most widely used. The kind of alloys used is also dependant on the color of gold required for the jewelry. For example in yellow gold, the alloys mixed in Gold are silver and zinc, whereas for white gold, silver, copper, nickel and zinc are mixed with gold.

The percentage of alloys mixed with gold also depends on the karat of gold required. For 1 gram of pure gold, if 18kt is required then 0.327 grams of alloys need to be mixed. Purity of the gold will directly affect the price too. Lesser the purity, lesser will be the price too.
Now that the karat of gold is covered, let us move on to the other carat – of diamonds:
There is an interesting piece of history behind the carat. The term carat is derived from the carob seeds that were used a long time ago to balance scales. These seeds were very uniform in shape and weight and were thought to be the most accurate for weighing. A carat is a unit of measurement for diamonds, for weighing them. One carat equals 200 milligrams or 0.20 grams.

Most of us have heard about the 4 C’s of Diamonds, which are used for determining the type of diamond used. We have already covered one C which is the Carat, so let’s get the other 3 C’s covered. These are Cut, Color and Clarity.

The Cut simply means the shape of the diamond. While there is a technical process involved for getting these cuts, let us simply say that there are many types of cuts in diamonds. The Round Cut is most widely used and then there are the other cuts also known as Fancy Cuts or Shapes like Pear, Princess, Marquise, Pear, Oval etc.

Color of the diamond is measured in a scale of alphabets where D-E-F stand for colorless, G-H-I-J are near colorless, K-L-M stand for faint yellow, N-O-P-Q-R are very light yellow and S-T-U-V-W-X are light yellow in color. The most preferred is obviously the colorless diamond.

Clarity stands for the flawlessness of the diamond. Again, the clarity of the diamond is also determined by Alphabets. IF stands for internally flawless, VVS is very very slight inclusions, VS is very slight inclusion, SI is Slight Inclusion, I-1 is with Inclusions.

The price of the diamond is directly determined by how high the diamond is in the scale of these 4 C’s.