Information About Gold

The karat system is used to reveal the amount of pure gold found in an item:  

  • 24 karat (24K) gold is pure gold - also marked .9999
  • 18 karat (18K) gold contains 18 parts gold and 6 parts other metal or metals, making it 75% gold - also marked 750
  • 14 karat (14K) gold contains 14 parts gold and 10 parts other metal or metals, making it 58.5% gold - also marked 585  
  • 10 karat (10K) gold contains 10 parts gold and 14 parts other metal or metals, making it 41.7% gold. 10k gold is the minimum karat designation that can still be called gold in the US (as set forth by the FTC in 1975) - also marked 417
In my many years in the jewelry business, I've had people to declare that 10 Karat is harder than 14 Karat. I am a goldsmith and work with gold jewelry daily and therefore experience all the qualities that various karated golds have to offer. When it comes to sizing and repairing rings, malleability of the metal is very important. In my opinion, 14 Karat (18 Karat is great, too) has the perfect balance of everything needed in a piece of jewelry to be great all the time.

It' a fact that 10 karat is less than 50% gold (41.7%, to be exact), meaning that 58.3% of it is made of base metals. Increased base metals make 10 karat have four main drawbacks over higher karats:

  1. More susceptible to tarnishing
  2. More vulnerable to problems with stress corrosion
  3. More likely to cause allergic reaction to people prone to base-metal allergies  
  4. Less luster and a lighter coloration
The strength and durability of 10K versus 14K is negligible because of the previously mentioned drawbacks of lower karated golds. If a person is concerned about mis-shaping or bending a ring because of working with his hands, the thickness of the ring should be of greater concern than the karat and an appropriate weight in a ring should be considered in light of the circumstances to which the ring is exposed.

Perhaps the only advantage to 10K is that it is cheaper to make and therefore cheaper to buy. If the piece of jewelry is thick enough and well-made, then 10K is fine. But, to focus on 10K being just a smidge harder than higher karats is just irrelevant, given all the facts.

Written by Annette Long Covington