August 24, 2019
What's it Worth? 18K vs. 14K Gold
What is the difference between 14 Karat and 18 Karat gold and does anyone care?
A karat measures the fineness or purity of gold. Pure gold is twenty-four karats, is very soft and easily loses its shape with pressure so it is alloyed with other metals such as silver, palladium or copper in order to make it suitable for use in jewelry. The less gold the alloy has the lower the karat number so eighteen karat contains a higher percentage of gold than does fourteen karat gold. But who cares and does this really matter to you? Most people either don't care about the difference or if they do care, they care because of the value associated with purer gold and that sometimes prevents them from embracing fourteen karat jewelry. Let's be honest here, jewelry is meant to be worn and not to hoard for resale value so here is how we think about the battle between fourteen karat and eighteen karat.