Gold Filled Jewelry Markings

Gold filled jewelry should also have markings indicating its karat number.

Gold filled jewelry markings. Vintage gold jewelry with european purity marks. Jewelry engraved with hge heavy gold electroplate ge gold electroplate or gf gold filled may appear to be made of gold but it is actually fashioned from other materials such as copper and contains only a very small amount of gold. Standard purity marks used for vintage gold jewelry. Sometimes the karat value is shown as a ratio such as 18 24 or 14 24 this is most commonly seen with gold filled jewelry as mentioned in the section above.

In europe purity marks are commonly shown as percentages. In that case it s either plated or filled gold or it s costume plain old jewelry not real gold. Vermeil pronounced ver may is gold. The most common identifier of gold filled items is the sign gf after the karat number.

A typical marking on gold filled jewelry might read 14k gf meaning it was made of metal coated with a 14 karat gold alloy with the alloy making up 5 percent of the item s total metal weight. Look for other hallmarks or stamps that indicate plated gold such as hge gold filled plate rgp ep or 1 10 the fractions indicate the ratio of gold to alloy such as copper. However such pieces usually have additional letters and numbers stamped that indicate that they are not solid gold. Look for markings like pt or pt followed by a number to indicate platinum metal.