What is a sample of gold and silver

Gold and silver, which people since ancient timesused to make jewelry, in themselves are quite soft metals. Therefore, alloys are made of them, to which other metals called ligatures are added. In order that in such alloys to know the exact content of precious metal, use samples of gold and silver, which indicate their content in the alloy jewelry.

For the first time on jewelry jewelry samples of gold andsilver began to be put in the XV century. In Russia, the stamping of gold products was introduced in 1700, and silver even earlier - in 1613. This guaranteed the quality of jewelry. In the Russian Federation, for example, branding of precious metal products is performed by the assay office, and the forgery of the state sample 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 himself.

Currently, there are three majorsystems of samples of gold and silver - this is metric, carat and spool. With a metric system, this sample reflects the number of parts of the precious metal that is contained in 1000 parts of the alloy. With a spool system, a pound consisting of 96 spools is used as the main measure. With a carat measurement system, the content of the precious metal in the alloy is determined on the basis that one unit of weight is divided into 24 carats.

The number of additives affects the sample, and whenthe use of various additives can produce alloys with predetermined properties, for example, the necessary strength and color of the 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 gold sample is better. Usually the highest sample has gold wedding rings, but earrings and chains can not be made from gold of such a sample, since they should be more durable.

In Russia, five samples are generally acceptedjewelry alloys of gold - 375, 500, 585, 750 and 958. 375 sample is made using copper and silver ligature, depending on it has a color gamut from yellow to red. 500 samples are made from the same components. In 585 the sample is additionally added with nickel and palladium, producing an alloy that is widely used in the manufacture of jewelry. The main admixtures of the gold alloy of 750 tests are also copper, silver, nickel and palladium, but platinum is also added to them. This alloy has a wide range of colors from red to green through a bright yellow color. In addition to the production of jewelry, it is often used for filigree works. The alloy of 958 gold is not used very often, because it is not solid enough and does not have a saturated color. In the world there are other alloys of gold, for example in Latin America, for the production of gold coins, a sample of gold 875 is used.

Alloys of silver in jewelry are used withsmall additions of copper. The most popular of them is silver of 925 tests. There are still 875, 800 and 750-th samples. They are used not only for the production of jewelry, but also for the manufacture of tableware. Separately there is an alloy of silver of 960 tests - it is used in the production of filigree products. It has such unique properties that products made from such an alloy with filigree technique can no longer be repeated from any other precious metal. Therefore, it happens that the price of such jewelry from silver is higher than the price of gold products.