What Does Gold Filled Mean in Jewelry Classification?
Let’s say you’re roaming through an antique store and you find two eyeglass frames. One is stamped “gold filled” and the other has no markings.
What is the difference between them, and which contains more gold? Don’t worry, in today’s post, we are going to tell you.
If There Are No Stampings, You Are Looking at a Gold-Plated or Gold-Toned Item
In many cases, gold-plated items that have been plated using tank or plasma plating have no stampings. Why? Because they contain extremely small amounts of gold. And gold-toned items, which are often unstamped, often contain no gold at all; they could be made of brass, plated with silver, and then given a coating of yellow lacquer.
Look at Packaging and Gift Boxes
If you’re lucky, the items you are considering are still in the manufacturers’ gift boxes. If they are, you will often find information about the metallic content, such as “gold-toned” or, “14K gold plated.”
Items Stamped “Gold-Filled” Contain More Gold
In fact, gold-filled items contain about 10% gold by weight. (A gold-filled item that weighs 10 grams, for example, will contain one gram of gold.) Gold-plated items, in contrast, contain very small amounts of gold – in many cases, only enough to provide a gold tone to the item in question.
How Karat Classifications Affect the Value
Here things get a bit complicated. If you find an item that is marked “12K gold plated,” that probably means that the gold that has been used to plate the item is 12K gold. However, in the past, some jewelers have played around with their stampings, and assigned karat ratings that reflect the total gold content of the item by weight. If an item’s weight is comprised of 50% base metal and 50% gold, for example, the item might be stamped as 12K gold plated, even though the gold that has been used is of a higher karat rating than 12K. (Note that 12K gold is 50% pure gold that has been alloyed with other metals.) Sorry if we confused you on this topic – if you have questions about an item you own, call our precious metal consultants at 800-426-2344 and we can explain it to you.
Gold-Filled Items Are Worth More by Weight than Gold-Plated Items
Because gold-filled items contain at least 10% gold (and gold-plated items contain much less), gold-filled items are worth more.
Gold Filled Items Were Made by Plating Several Layers of Gold onto Base Metal
Forty or 50 years ago or more, companies that made gold-filled items of jewelry sometimes applied the gold by using a heat process. Other companies used tank plating, which is still widely used today but applied three or four layers of gold onto the items being plated. But the bottom line, again, is that gold-filled items contain more gold than gold-plated items do.
Old Items Usually Contain More Gold
This is a rule of thumb. Over the last 20 years or so, it has become more common for manufacturers of inexpensive gold-toned items to apply only very thin layers of gold to them. If you find items that are older than that – like an old pair of eyeglass frames hiding in Grandpa’s dresser drawer – you could be looking at something of higher value that is well worth recycling.
Got Questions? We Have Answers!
If you have questions about gold, platinum, silver or other items made of precious metals, we are here to answer them. Call us at 800-426-2344. Our services include testing your items so you will know the value of all your precious metal investments.