Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum
Que tout n’est pas or c’on voit luire
Or, as good Will Shakespeare wrote in “The Merchant of Venice”
“All that glisters is not gold”
Our man Will knew what he was talking about. It may look like gold, but is it? Make sure you know that what you're buying is gold and not a cheap metal in gold clothing:
- A layer of at least 10-karat gold is permanently bonded by heat and pressure to one or more surfaces of a support metal, then rolled or drawn to a prescribed thickness. The karat gold must be at least 1/10 by weight of the total metal content.
- Material consisting of a layer of plating of 10-karat gold or better is mechanically bonded to a base metal. The karat gold content may be less than 1/20, but must be properly identified by weight in terms of total metal content.
- Gold at least 15 micro-inches thick is bonded to sterling silver by an electrolytic or mechanical process.
- Pure gold that is pounded into sheets applied to other surfaces by hand. Usually about 3 micro-inches thick.
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