Helpful Tips

  • Gold. What you should know about it.

     Gold is a natural element with a chemical symbol 'Au'.  Its purity is measured in Karats -not to be confused with Carats, which is a size/weight measure for gemstones. ( more on that later). In its purest form, gold has 24 karats. It is 99.99 % pure.  As an investment it is usually sold at this level of purity -whether as coins, wafers or bars.        All other karats of gold are fractions of pure gold.  Common industry examples include:     -18k , ( 18/24ths ) which is 75% pure gold. The remaining 25% are alloys (other...

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  • How much is that gold ring?

     I am often asked questions like " Is the same ring in gold more expensive than silver?" .  The answer, unquestionably, is "yes".  Here is a the recent history of gold in a nutshell.  When I began making jewellery in the 1970's gold was selling for $30~$40 an ounce.  I recall when it rose to $90 and everyone was aghast. Well now ( April 2015 ) it is in the area of $1500 CND. Gold price is always stated in US dollars. In this case $1200 US= $1500 CND.  Today's prices are actually down from a few years ago when...

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  • What are fine metals?

    Ok, this is a bit of a test to get things going.  Since I mainly work with silver and gold, it should make sense for me to talk a bit about silver and gold.  Here goes; Silver in its purest form (refined) is also called "Fine" silver.  It can be used as such but rarely is.  Enamelling on silver is one exception.  When we talk about silver in general, we are usually referring to "Sterling Silver" which, by industry standards is 925 parts pure (fine) silver , and 75 parts pure copper.  thus we often see silver stamped as ".925"....

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