number means.
Most people buy gold by colour and by price. Fewer ask the question that decides how a piece will live on the hand: how much of it is actually gold.
Karat is a fraction of twenty-four.
24K is pure gold. 22K is twenty-two parts gold to two parts other metal — about 91.6 per cent. 18K is eighteen parts to six — 75 per cent gold, a quarter something else. That remaining quarter is not a flaw hidden from you. It is the part that does the work.
Where the colour comes from.
The alloy is what gives gold its colour. Yellow gold leans on silver and copper. Rose gold takes more copper. White gold is alloyed with white metals and finished to a cooler tone. The same 75 per cent gold, three different characters — chosen for the wearer, not the vault.
Pure gold is soft. Fine jewellery is 18K.
Pure gold marks with a fingernail, bends out of round, and loses a crisp edge within a season of daily wear. It has long been held as wealth — bars, chains, coins — more than as jewellery worn hard and often.
Alloying gold makes it harder, more durable, able to hold a stone securely for years. 18K is the point where there is still enough gold to read as solid and warm, and enough alloy to survive a real life. It is the standard most fine jewellery is built to, and the one we work in.
The right karat is not the highest number. It is the one that matches how you mean to wear the thing.
Blaise Huxley · On CraftIs 18K the same as 916?
No — and this trips up many buyers in Singapore. 916 means 91.6 per cent gold, which is 22K, and is stamped 916. 18K is 75 per cent gold, and is stamped 750. So 916 holds more pure gold than 18K, and is softer for it.
Solid gold is marked with its purity: 750 for 18K, 916 for 22K, 999 for 24K. A stamp tells you what the metal is. It is worth knowing where to find it.
Does 18K gold tarnish?
No. Solid 18K does not rust or tarnish the way plated or low-grade metal can. Over years it can take light surface scratches and a softer patina — that is wear, not damage — and a polish returns it.
Every piece, solid 18K gold.
