Do you know your Gold?

So you think you know all about gold? Are you sure? Is the yellow gold that is lying in your safe or the ones which you are wearing the only gold available? While pure gold is yellow in color, gold can be developed into various colors. These colors are generally obtained by alloying gold with other elements in various proportions. These may or may not be used for making jewelry alone.

Read on to know more.

Gold nuggets

• White gold is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal, usually nickel, manganese or palladium. Like yellow gold, the purity of white gold is given in carats. Its properties vary depending on the metals and proportions used. As a result, white gold alloys can be used for different purposes; while a nickel alloy is hard and strong and therefore good for rings and pins, gold-palladium alloys are soft, pliable and good for white gold gemstone settings, sometimes with other metals like copper, silver, and platinum for weight and durability.
• Rose gold is a gold and copper alloy widely used for specialized jewellery. It is also known as pink gold and red gold. As it was popular in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it is also known as Russian gold, although this term has become somewhat rare. Since rose gold is an alloy, there is no such thing as “pure rose gold”. The highest karat version of rose gold is also known as crown gold, which is 22 karat. In music, “rose gold” is the name of a commonly-used finish in the interior of the bell of brass and woodwind instruments. It consists of a very thin plating of copper over a layer of silver; no real gold is used in the construction.
• Green gold alloys are made by leaving the copper out of the alloy mixture and just using gold and silver. It actually appears as a greenish yellow rather than green. Green gold was known to Lydians as long ago as 860 BC under the name electrum.
• Purple gold (also called amethyst gold and violet gold) is an alloy of gold and aluminum rich in gold aluminium intermetallic (AuAl₂). Gold content in AuAl₂ is around 79% and can therefore be referred to as 18 karat gold. Purple gold is more brittle than other gold alloys. It is therefore usually machined and faceted to be used as a ‘gem’ in conventional jewelry rather than by itself.