When it comes to gold And diamonds We often hear about “carat“, even if depending on the context this term can mean two completely different things: in the case of gold we speak of karati, with the kand this value indicates the purity of the metal; In the case of diamonds i carat instead indicate the weight.
The gold carats
The first thing to know is that the maximum caliber which can be achieved in gold is of 24 carats: This value corresponds to a jewel or a pure gold ingot to 100%. To descend we find other caratures that, in proportion, correspond to alloys with an ever less quantity of gold. For example, if we talk about gold a 18 carats, It means that this will be composed of 75% gold and from 25% of other metals.
Among other things, it is good at this point to clarify one thing: to have 24 carat gold It is not necessarily a good. In jewelry, for example, gold is often used to 18 carat rather than the 24 Since pure gold is extremely ductile and complex to work and it is better to have with a league containing a certain percentage of other metals, such as copper or silver.
Know that in any case there is a minimum value of caliber necessary to classify a metal alloy as “gold”: in Italy it is 9 carat while in the US it is 10.
The cads of the diamonds
In the case of diamonds (and more generally for most of the precious stones) the carats do not indicate purity but the weight: a carat – Written with “c” – Equal to 200 milligrams. So if we hear about a gem from 30 caratmeans that this has a mass of 6 grams. From here we can also make another consideration: while in gold the maximum is 24 karati, in diamonds there is no maximum caliber, since their mass can take any value.
At the same time it is good to keep in mind that the value of a diamond It does not depend only on the caliber: in fact there are many other parameters to consider, such as the cut, there brilliance or the clarity.
