Gold and silver, which people from ancient times used to make jewelry, are themselves quite soft metals. Therefore, alloys are made of them, to which other metals, called ligatures, are added. In order to know the exact content of the precious metal in such alloys, gold and silver samples are used, which indicate their content in the composition of the jewelry alloy.
For the first time, jewelry samples of gold and silver began to be put in the XV century. In Russia, the branding of gold products was introduced in 1700, and silver even earlier - in 1613. This guaranteed the quality of the jewelry. In the Russian Federation, for example, the stigmatization of products made from precious metals is carried out by the assay office, and the falsification of a state test of gold and silver on products is prosecuted by law. However, in some countries, state control over the quality of jewelry alloys is completely absent, and the branding of jewelry is carried out by the manufacturer.
Currently, there are three main systems for testing gold and silver in the world - metric, carat and spool. In the metric system, such a sample reflects the number of parts of the precious metal contained in 1000 parts of the alloy. With the spool system, a pound of 96 spools is used as the main measure. With a carat measuring system, the content of the precious metal in the alloy is determined on the basis that one unit of weight is divided by 24 carats.
The amount of additives affects the sample, and when using various additives, it is possible to obtain alloys with predetermined properties, for example, the required strength and color of a precious product. Therefore, in the manufacture of jewelry various samples of precious metals are used, depending on their purpose. Therefore, it is difficult to unequivocally answer which sample of gold is better. Usually the highest test is made by gold wedding rings, but earrings and chains cannot be made of gold of such a test, since they should be more durable.
In Russia, five samples of gold jewelry alloys are considered generally accepted - 375, 500, 585, 750 and 958. The 375 sample is made using copper and silver as a ligature, depending on this, it has a color range from yellow to red. Of the same components, 500 samples are made. In the 585th sample , nickel and palladium are additionally added, obtaining an alloy that is widely used in the manufacture of jewelry. Copper, silver, nickel and palladium are also the main additives of the 750- grade gold alloy, but platinum is also added to them. This alloy has a wide range of colors from red to green through bright yellow. In addition to the production of jewelry, it is often used in filigree work. Alloy of 958 gold is not used very often, as it is not hard enough and does not have a saturated color. Other gold alloys are found in the world, for example, in Latin America, a sample of gold 875 is used to produce gold coins.
Silver alloys in jewelry are used with small additions of copper. The most popular of these is 925 sterling silver. There are another 875, 800 and 750th samples. They are used not only for the production of jewelry, but also for the manufacture of tableware. Separately, there is a silver alloy of 960 samples - it is used in the production of filigree products. It has such unique properties that products made of such an alloy using filigree technique can no longer be repeated from any other precious metal. Therefore, it happens that the price of such silver jewelry is higher than the price of gold jewelry.