Gold is a precious metal and has been found in ancient historical ruins of countries in various forms like jewelry, coins, etc. Though the yellow metal in each of these items or what we know of the metal as on today’s date is pure and is of high value, there are different types of this metal. The metal is mostly mixed with other metals and the commonly available metal is an alloy. This metal has been classified on the basis of some factors. Through this blog, we hope to inform our readers about how to identify pure gold.
An important classification of this metal is based on its purity. Whenever we speak of this precious metal, we use the term ‘karat’ or ‘k’. This unit tells us about the purity of the metal in a product. We have gold of 9k, 10k, 12k, 14k, 18k, 22k and 24k. 24k is considered to be the purest form of the yellow metal which has almost 99% of the metal content. Now if we take 12k, that is half of 24k, it means that it has 50% of the yellow metal and the rest 50% could be a mix of copper and silver or some other metal. In order to determine the actual value of the metal, divide your karat value of the metal with 24 and multiply it by 100 to get the percentage of purity of the metal in the product.
Another classification of the metal is the type of gold bullion. This is the metal in its purest form in the shape of bars, biscuits, and coins. These can be of different shapes and weights. These are further sub-divided into other categories. Bullion coins are different form ancient or antique coins. People often confuse the two and think of them as similar things. The metal is also classified on the basis of colors. Apart from the usual common yellow color, it also comes in white, pink, red, blue, black, purple and green. These colors depend on the metal that it is mixed with the yellow metal.
This metal also comes in some other forms like unrefined that has the metal in its raw state. The metal in its unrefined form sometimes occurs in the form of nuggets or dust and the purity ranges from 20k to 23k. Gold scrap is any product that is valued for the metal in it. The best example of this is broken or used jewelry.