subject: What Does "precious Metal" Cover? [print this page] "Precious metal", this special noun is often mentioned by people. However, have you got what is precious metal?
Precious metal mainly refers to gold, silver and platinum group metals (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, platinum), etc. 8 kinds of metal elements. Most of these metals are have a charming color and great resistance to the chemicals. They will not easy to cause chemical reaction in general condition. They are not only used to created variety of jewelry and souvenirs, but a wide range of industrial uses.
Currently, the precious metal jewelry in the market can be divided into gold jewelry, silver jewelry, platinum jewelry and palladium jewelry. How the standard content requirement for different metal type?
Gold Jewelry
Gold jewelry often can be divided into 24 K gold, 18K gold, 14K gold, 12K gold, 10K gold. 100% divided by 24 equals 1K that means 1K approximately equals to 4.1667% and 24K equals 100%.
The gold content of 18K jewelry could not less than 75%, and it could mark as 18K or G18K, G750K, Au750, Gold 18K, Gold 750.
14K gold is 58.5 gold content and marks 585, 14K.
12K gold is made of 50% gold.
10K gold is made of 41.7% gold.
(There are also some other kind of gold, such as 9K that means the gold content could not lower than 37%, and 22k the gold content is higher than 91.6%)
Silver Jewelry
925 Silver. It contains 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper or any other antioxidants and marks as S925, Ag 925 and silver 925.
Pure Silver. It requires 99% silver content and could mark as S990, Ag990 or silver 990.
Recent years, it founds that many manufacturers will re-surface a layer of nickel-plated for preventing the oxidation on the surface of 925 silver or pure silver so that it is easy to treat them as fake or imitation silver products if not carefully detect.
Platinum Jewelry
With the rising consumption level, platinum jewelry become more and more popular among people recent years, and Pt900, Pt950, Pt990 are often seen in the jewelry market.
Pt900 requires 90% platinum content, and usually marks Pt900 or platinum 900.
Pt950 requires 95% platinum content, and usually marks Pt950 or platinum 950.
Pt990 requires 99% platinum content, and usually marks pt990 or pure platinum.
Some Pt850 (more than 85%) and Pt750 (more than 75%) are seen occasionally.
Palladium Jewelry
This precious metal is to be produced jewelry recently and it usually mixed with platinum jewelry in the past. Palladium is a new member in precious metal family. Now Pd950 and Pd990 are popular in the market.
Pd950 requires more than 95% palladium content and can be identified as Pd950 or palladium 950.
Pd990 requires more than 99% palladium content and can be identified as Pd990 or palladium 990.
