When you buy gold jewelry, look for the karat quality mark. The karat mark should tell you how much pure gold is in the piece.
Pure gold – 24 karat (24K) gold – is soft, so it’s often mixed with other metals to increase its hardness and durability. The total of pure gold and other metal adds up to 24, so:
Near the karat quality mark, you should see the name or the U.S. registered trademark of the company that will stand behind the mark. The trademark may be in the form of a name, a symbol, or initials. If you’re considering a piece of gold jewelry but don’t see a trademark along with the karat mark, don’t buy it.
“Solid gold” refers to any gold item where the inside of the item is not hollow. The karat mark still will denote the proportion of gold to other metal.
Jewelry can be plated with gold by mechanical plating, electroplating, and other processes. Eventually, gold plating wears away. How soon depends on how often the item is worn and how thick the plating is.
Vermeil, a special type of gold plated product, consists of a base of sterling silver that is coated or plated with gold.
The terms “gold flashed” and “gold washed” describe products that have an extremely thin electroplating of gold (less than .175 microns). This will wear away faster than gold plate, gold filled, or gold electroplate.
The words ”silver” and ”sterling silver” describe a product that contains 92.5% pure silver. Silver products sometimes may be marked 925, which means that 925 parts per thousand are pure silver.
Some jewelry described as ”silver plate” has a layer of silver applied to a base metal.
”Coin silver” is used for compounds that contain 90% pure silver.
According to the law, quality-marked silver also must bear the name or a U.S. registered trademark of the company or person that will stand behind the mark.
Items must contain at least 90% tin to be described and marked as pewter.