DIFFERENT COLORS OF GOLD
SHADES, HUES, AND COLORS THAT GOLD COMES IN
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission. Thanks! As an Amazon Associate I also earn from qualifying purchases.
When most people think about Gold, they think about two different shades: Yellow Gold and White Gold.
There are so many more…
And we’ll get into that, but first… Let’s understand Pure Gold…
24k Pure Gold
Gold, in it’s Pure State, is 24k Gold. 24k Gold is Very Yellow and Very Malleable! (see image below)
This Pure Gold is Quite Soft and can be Dented, Scratched, Heated, Rolled, Pulled, and Manipulated pretty easily. That’s why it’s not good to use Pure Gold in Jewelry, especially Jewelry that would hold in Stones like Diamonds and Gemstones. They would fall out! You need stronger Metals for those secure jobs and lasting ability.
So Manufacturers and Jewelers add different Alloys to the Mix to create different kinds of Gold. This changes the State of the Pure Gold into Parts and Percentages. Take a look at the Chart Below…
- 24k Gold is 99.9% Pure Gold
- 22k Gold is 91.6% Gold
- 20k Gold is 83.3% Gold
- 18k Gold is 75% Gold
- 14k Gold is 58.5% Gold
- 10k Gold is 41.7% Gold
The Stamps that these different mixtures get are shown here:
- .999 = 24k Gold
- .916 = 22k Gold
- .833 = 20k Gold
- .750 = 18k Gold
- .585 = 14k Gold
- .417 = 10k Gold
Popular Golds
The Most Popular Gold in the U.S.A. is 14k Gold (they like more Rich Golds like 24k, 22k and 20k in Europe).
14k Yellow Gold
14k Yellow Gold is made up with these Alloys: 58.5% Gold, 25% Silver, 17% Copper.
14k White Gold
White Gold is basically Yellow Gold (Since there is No Real White Gold in Nature) with some different Alloys added to make it look White (and then, after that it’s usually Rhodium Plated to make it even more White). The Alloys in 14k White Gold are: 58.5% Gold, 20% Copper, 14.5% Nickel, and 7.5% Zinc.
By adding in other Alloys and Minerals, and by altering the Heat and Temperature, you can make all kinds of different Colors, Hues and Shades of Gold.
The Colors of Gold
Jewelers come up with some interesting and cool Colors (Plus new ones with names like Honey and Strawberry – as shown below).
So let’s take a peek at all the different Hues and Shades and Colorations of Gold today:
|
|
Images of Gold Colors
Now let’s see the real thing…
Below are examples of Gold in all the different Colors on the market today. From 24K, 22K, to 18K, 14K and 10K, as well as White Gold (Rhodium Plated and Not), to Tri-Gold (Three Different Colors of Gold Combined), to Two-Tone (Just Two Different Shades of Gold), to Black Hills Gold (Usually 3 Shades of Gold like Yellow, Rose and Green Gold, but often you’ll also see White in the mix). Plus really cool Colors like Honey Gold, Green Gold, Pink Gold (called Strawberry and Rose Gold as well), Blue Gold, Purple Gold (Yes, it does exist), Black Gold (Nope, it’s not Oil), Gold Plated (like Costume Jewelry) and even Fool’s Gold.
Take a look…
(PIN ME!)
These Colors are Cool! The choices are endless. The Styles and Designs are out of this world.
Nothing says you have to stay traditional. In fact, Jewelry Stores are carrying more Metals now than they ever did. Metals like Titanium, Tungsten, Platinum, Stainless Steel, Black Steel, Blue Steel, Sterling Silver, Brass, and Copper.
So if you want something Different, Fun, Artsy… Don’t be afraid to check out Gold.
Color is always Awesome! :)
Recommended Jewelry Supplies: |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Recommended Jewelry Supplies: |
|||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In Great Britain, before WWII, and less so after all the rationing was over and done with for them, 22Kt gold plain wedding bands were the standard. Gorgeous rich color, more so than even our 18kt gold, and beautifully maintained bands are now finding their way into – and out of – British pawn shops, some of whom are making them available to the general public everywhere on eBay! The prices, considering what you’re getting, are quite comparable with rings we can buy here in lesser grades of gold.
The fun part comes when you learn to decipher the numerous hallmarks, makers marks and so forth, inside the bands. They are marked with a crown for being made of gold, and a specific mark for the city where they were either produced or sent to be verified for gold content (assayed) after production, which all gold pieces were required to have done. The anchor for Birmingham seems to be quite prevalent, so they must have had many manufacturers there. Then there are a couple of different marks for karatage, which are pretty standard with ours, and the best one yet, I think, is a special letter and cartouche mark for the year it was made! There are numerous charts available on line to help you decipher them, especially the production year marks. Since there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, it took a great deal of ingenuity to develop a cartouche style (the plaque or “framework” surrounding the letter) PLUS the font style for the letters for each 26 year run! One 26 year run may be capital letters in a particular font style, inside a specific style of framework, while the next 26 year’s run may be lower case in the same font and framework. Then you have to change them up all over again! With the inside wear that 22kt gold allows, sometimes the older pieces are hard to decipher, and it’s either the letter or the cartouche that tells the tale! So, if you have an affinity for a specific year, or time period, it makes it easier to find a ring from that time!
But, during the War years, 22kt gold was out. Being needed in electronics and such, just as platinum was here, as well as a lot of gold and copper, a British bride’s wedding ring was reduced to an available stock of 9kt gold rings of about 2mm width and definitely no more than 2.1 grams of gold per ring, and of course there were never enough to go around! One jeweler in late 1942 reported that even though he had need of 300 (THREE HUNDRED) rings, he ended up getting 30! So, couples were scouring pawn shops, antiques dealers, and digging through family heirlooms for rings. One woman had her great-great-grandmother’s ring “remodelled” for her own use. I imagine many women did the same or similar, but this was from one particular book I read parts of.
Also, though gold was a problem to find, apparently at least for one couple, platinum wasn’t! He slipped a platinum wedding band on his bride’s finger at the ceremony, but 25 years later presented her with the gold one he thought she should have had in the beginning! Must have had something to do with the color? I can’t imagine giving up platinum for gold, but that’s what she did, and she was still wearing it at the time of her interview for the book, many years later.
These war-time bands can be found today, and identified by what was called a “Utility Mark” which looked rather like a “U” not closed at the bottom, or like this – ().
I’m not sure of how long it took for gold to come off the Ration list (I can’t seem to find any information about that particular commodity, but I do know that the final item, meat, did not become completely unrationed until 1954! The length of time, and the types of items being rationed, then unrationed, the rationed again, plus repetitive dock worker’s strikes which severely interferred with the importation of basic commodities, in some cases, leaving meat to rot where it sat for lack of dock workers to move it to market, made the general public angry and agitated with the current government. Of course the other side used this general unrest to their advantage to win the 1951 general election! But, you’ll note they didn’t have any better luck than the guys they replaced!
Some of these golds are real alloys, some are not. Strawberry gold isn’t any different than rose gold, except that they are different marketing terms for essentially the same alloy (pure gold alloyed with silver and a high copper content). Some brands may use more copper in their red/rose/pink/strawberry gold alloy, but it’s essentially arbitrary at that point.
The same goes for honey gold. It’s most likely a marketing term for some company’s 22K yellow gold alloy. Maybe it’s a combination of brass and gold, I don’t know.
Black gold doesn’t exist, anywhere. You can black-rhodium plate something, but black gold does not exist and is not an alloy.
As for purple gold, that can be achieved by combining gold and aluminum, but it’s so brittle, it’s almost completely impractical for wearable jewelry. Two intermetallic compounds that are known to produce colours in gold alloys are AuIn2, which has a clear blue colour, and AuGa2, which displays a slight bluish hue. The gold-indium intermetallic compound AuIn2 forms at 46wt%Au, and AuGa2 at 58.5wt%Au. Both have a similar crystal structure to the purple gold compound which is based on the CaF2 prototype. The blue colour is ‘diluted’ in a similar manner to that of purple gold.
Essentially, you can produce many different “gold” colors, but does it even matter that they’re gold after a certain point? No one associates gold with purple or gold with black. It’s all marketing, but it’s always fun to play around with colors.
What about cake gold?