Mad About Jewellery Blog

As Good As Gold

Posted on 29 September 2009

All this investigation into Hallmarks, led me to wonder about the purity of Gold.  So I looked it up and as you probably know, the difference between the different types of Gold is down to the purity of the Gold. The purest – and most expensive is 24 karat Gold, which is Pure Gold and therefore the standard by which all other golds are judged and costed.
So, working down the scale, 22 karat Gold would have a purity of 22/24, or 91.7%.
18 karat would have a purity of 18/24, or 75%.
14 karat would have a purity of 14/24, or 58.3%
And last – and certainly least – 9 karat Gold would have a purity of 9/24, or 37.5%
As the purity of Gold decreases, the alloy in the jewellery increases. Copper and silver are the most common alloys used when making Yellow Gold jewellery and White Gold is usually made with a nickel alloy.

Which just leaves me to explain the simile “as good as gold”.  This really ought to be ‘as genuine as gold’, because the meaning of this well-known simile dates back to the time when banknotes first came on the scene.  At that point, they weren’t considered to be money in the sense we now think of them, they were promisory notes or IOUs. Gold or Silver was real money, as it had intrinsic value. Notes were just promises to pay in coin.  This legacy lives on even today as UK banknotes still include a message, signed by the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England promising to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five/ten/twenty/fifty pounds’.

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