Personalised jewellery in Gold and Silver - information about Gold and Silver
Silver and Gold Precious Metals
Coolabah Charms uses the finest precious metals to produce our personalized jewellery range.
We use sterling silver and 9ct gold and the 9ct gold is available in White gold, Rose gold and Yellow Gold. We can also produce our items in 14ct and 18ct gold and platinum upon request. Our metals are sourced from the refiners and manufacturers of precious metals in Australia.
Here is a little information about the properties of Gold and Silver:
Information about Silver..
Silver in its pure form much like gold is a soft metal. Silver in the ancient world was called argentum and was thought to be more valuable than gold because it did not appear in nature as readily. Fine silver is used in the manufacturing of jewellery however it is not a durable metal and jewellery items can damage easily hence pure silver has been made more durable by adding copper to silver to make the alloy sterling silver. With the prices of silver going up in the long term, Sterling Silver makes for a great precious metal and investment. Sterling silver is a durable metal to wear everyday.
Sterling silver, although durable and precious, can cause reactions and the metal can tarnish because of its composition. The composition of sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver and the remaining 7.5% is made up of copper and or nickel. It is these other alloys that cause tarnishing and reactions. Tarnishing can be avoided by care of the jewellery item. Some items such as perfumes, sunblock and skin lotions can cause tarnishing of the metal and it is best not to directly spray perfume or sun block onto sterling silver items. Reactions to sterling silver on the skin can appear and if you are a person that reacts to sterling silver then the best thing to do is to Rhodium plate Sterling silver. This is when sterling silver is covered with a layer of the metal rhodium. We offer a Rhodium plating service to all our products upon request. By rhodium plating sterling silver it will not tarnish or reacte to skin types. Once Rhodium plated it may need plating again in the future and we can replate for you.
How do you know if my piece of jewellery is Silver? Most items of jewellery are hallmarked with a maker’s mark and a stamp that indicates the metal it is. If your silver looking jewellery has a stamp .925 then it is sterling silver. It is not compulsory for a maker to hallmark jewelry pieces in Australia or USA however in the UK most items are hallmarked.
A little about Gold...
An interesting fact about gold if all the gold ever found approx. 20,000 tons were cast into a single ingot it would only make approx 20 meter cube. Gold is a precious commodity and was probably the second metal after copper to be worked by early human beings. Precious gold work can be found from early as 3000 B.C
Gold as a metal is too soft to be worn and therefore silver and copper are added to gold to make gold more durable. Rose gold is made up of a mixture of copper and gold to obtain the coloring of rose gold. White gold is made up of gold and nickel and can contain zinc, copper or manganese. All white gold items are rhodium plated to give it that white gold shine. The lower the carat of gold the less gold it has in it and more of the other alloys.
Hallmarks for Gold – if your piece of jewelry has the following stamps: .375 stamp it is 9ct carat gold and if it has the stamp .750 it is 18 carat. We can make the gold item as you wish. Please contact us if you have any question on metals and your needs to make a special piece of jewellery for you.
