Beaded jewelry artists will likely use gold filled metal, gold plated or gold vermeil as well as sterling silver, fine silver or argentium silver in their jewelry. When shopping for beaded handcrafted jewelry, it's important to learn about each metal. 1. The "K" in Karat: We begin with the karat Buy Email Database because the karat is a very old measure of how much gold is in an alloy, or gold-blend. A measure of 1 Karat is 1 part of pure gold and 23 parts of metal alloy or 4% gold. So 24K is 100% pure gold, 9K is 37%, 14K is 58% and 18K is 75%.

You get the idea. 2. Gold filled: To be called "gold filled", the quantity of gold must be at least 1/20th by weight of the total product. This is commonly known as 14/20, 12/20 or 10/20 or 14K, 12K or 10K gold filled. By far, 14k gold filled metal is the best of the filled golds. There's 100 Buy Email Database times more gold in 14k gold filled metal than in gold plate. Gold filled metal is also called rolled-gold. A thick covering of gold, 5% or 1/20 of the total weight, is mechanically bonded to a base metal, usually brass or copper.

This is gold filled metal. It's hard wearing, will not flake or peel and should last as long as 14K gold when properly cared for. 3. Gold plate: When it comes to gold plating, steel or Buy Email Database brass is dipped into a bath of electroplating solution along with a lump of solid gold. When an electric current is applied, a thin layer of gold is deposited on the metal. This process of called electroplating. Since the plating is