Most gold jewelry has a tiny stamp somewhere on it, inside a ring band, on a clasp, on the back of a pendant, that most people have never really looked at. That stamp is telling you exactly how much of the piece is actually gold, and it matters more than most sellers realize when it comes time to find out what something is worth.
Why Jewelry Gold Isn’t Pure Gold
Pure gold, 24 karat, is soft, soft enough that jewelry made from it would bend and scratch easily in everyday wear. To make gold durable enough for rings, bracelets, and chains, jewelers alloy it with other metals like copper, silver, or nickel. The karat number tells you what fraction of the piece, by weight, is actual gold:
- 24K: 99.9% gold (rarely used in everyday jewelry due to softness)
- 22K: 91.7% gold
- 18K: 75% gold
- 14K: 58.3% gold (the most common karat for U.S. jewelry)
- 10K: 41.7% gold (the lowest karat legally sold as “gold” in the U.S.)
Everything below 10K in the U.S. can’t legally be marketed as gold jewelry at all. The lower the karat, the less pure gold is actually in the piece, and the less it’s worth for its metal content, regardless of how big or heavy it looks.
How to Find Your Piece’s Stamp
Karat stamps are usually small and tucked out of sight: the inside of a ring band, near the clasp on a bracelet or necklace, or on the post or back of an earring. You’re looking for a number followed by “K” (14K, 18K) or a three-digit “fineness” number (585 for 14K, 750 for 18K, 916 for 22K, which represent parts per thousand of pure gold). A magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe helps; the stamps are often worn faint on older pieces.
Why You Shouldn’t Rely on the Stamp Alone
Here’s the part that surprises people: a stamp tells you what the manufacturer claimed, not what an independent buyer will verify. Stamps wear down over decades of daily wear until they’re unreadable. Older or foreign pieces sometimes use purity systems that look unfamiliar to U.S. sellers. And, less commonly, some jewelry is stamped inaccurately or is gold-plated over a base metal with no real gold content at all, and a stamp alone won’t catch that.
This is why a legitimate buyer doesn’t just read your stamp and take it at face value. Proper testing, whether acid testing, electronic testing, or X-ray fluorescence for higher-value pieces, confirms the actual gold content before any offer is made. If a buyer skips that step and prices your jewelry purely off the stamp, you’re trusting a number a manufacturer put there years or decades ago, sight unseen.
What This Means for What You’re Paid
Purity is one of three inputs into your offer, along with weight and the current spot price of gold, but it’s the one most sellers understand least. A 14K piece and an 18K piece of identical weight are worth meaningfully different amounts, because roughly a quarter more of the 18K piece is actual gold. Knowing your rough karat before you sell won’t change the physics of the metal, but it will help you understand and evaluate the offer you’re given, and ask informed questions if something doesn’t add up.
If you’re not sure what karat your pieces are, don’t worry about figuring it out yourself before selling. Bring everything in and a proper evaluation will confirm it, stamp or no stamp. See everything we buy or find your nearest service area to get started.
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Every evaluation is honest, in-person, and based on live spot pricing, with no obligation to sell. Schedule your evaluation with New Orleans Silver and Gold today.
