What does 9 carat mean and what is the differnce between 9k, 14k & 18k gold?
Pure gold is too soft and difficult for jewellers to work with so gold is alloyed with other metals such as copper, zinc and silver for jewellery purpose. The carat system is a measure of the amount of the gold in the finished alloy. Pure gold is measued as 24k, so in the case of 9k gold there are 9 parts of gold out of the 24 parts, in 14k there are 14 parts of gold and in 18k there are 18 parts of gold. These gold carat markings can also be written as a percentage of the gold in the ring, for example 9k can be written as 375 which is 37.5% gold, 14k is 585 (58.5%) and 18k is 750 (75%).
