What are carats?
Gold in its pure form is too soft to use as jewelry. It would bend or break to easily. That is why gold is always mixed with other metals like silver, copper or nickel in order to make it tougher. This is called a n alloy.
Carat is the percentage gold contained in a certain item. In The Netherlands, the most current carats are 14 and 18. If a piece of jewelry is 18 carat, this means that the percentage of pure gold is 75%. For 14 carat the share of pure gold is 58,5%.
Outside of the Netherlands, other carats are used more often. Arab gold, Turkish gold or Indian gold sometimes is as high as 20 or 22 carat, meaning that the percentage of gold is over 90%. On the other hand there is a lot of gold from outside of the Netherlands that is only 8 or 10 carat, containing a much lower share of pure gold.
At De Goudwaag we welcome all different carats. With a special testing procedure we establish the percentage of pure gold in an item. On that basis we offer you the highest price for your gold.
The situation with silver is comparable, only the term “percentage” is used more often than carat. The lowest percentage of silver can be found in some sorts of cutlery. These items sometimes contain just 10% of pure silver. Most pieces of silver jewelry are 985 sterling silver, which means they contain 92,5% pure silver, the rest mostly being copper. De Goudwaag buys all kinds of silver. Please be aware that silver is worth a lot less than gold. The value of gold is about 60 times higher than the value of silver.