The gold22 carat

Two parts alloy.The rest is gold.

Twenty-two parts gold in every twenty-four. That one fraction decides the colour, the softness, the weight and the price of everything on this page, and of most of what is in our cabinet.

Macro of hand-worked 22 carat gold: granulation, twisted wire and a polished facet

What the 916stamp promises.

Carat counts gold in twenty-fourths. A 22 carat piece is twenty-two parts pure gold and two parts alloy, which works out at 91.6 per cent. Written as parts per thousand that is 916, and 916 is the mark struck somewhere inside the piece.

The two remaining parts are usually silver and copper, and they have one job: hardness. Everything you actually want from the piece is carried by the twenty-two — the colour, the weight in the hand, what it fetches at the scale.

The colour goes all the way through

At 91.6 per cent there is too little alloy left to pale the metal, so 22 carat keeps very nearly the colour of pure gold: a deep, warm yellow that leans red under evening light. It is not a plating and it cannot wear away. It is also the first thing our customers check when they pick a piece up, before the hallmark and well before the price.

That depth is what people mean when they say chain-store gold looks pale. Most of that shelf is 9 carat, just over a third gold, and even the 18 carat at its fine end is a quarter alloy. The eye finds the difference straight away.

Soft metal, built heavier

More gold also means softer gold. Pure metal can be marked with a fingernail, and 22 carat sits only two parts from pure. The trade answered that centuries ago by putting more metal into the work: bangles carry thicker walls than the same design would need at 18 carat, chain links are drawn denser, patterns are shaped to brace themselves. The heft of a 22 carat set is structural, not decorative.

The softness sets limits too. A ring worn through gym sessions and gardening will collect marks a harder alloy would shrug off, which is part of why 21 carat exists. Small marks polish out at the bench, and caring for gold covers what to do between visits.

Every gram of it is 0.916 grams of pure gold.

What the scale says it is worth

A 22 carat piece is priced the way it will one day be valued: its weight, at the day’s rate, plus the making. The rate moves daily, so nothing in our cabinet wears a ticket. The piece goes on the scale in front of you and the sum happens while you watch. How gold is priced walks through the whole equation.

The same sum works in reverse. Purity at this level is understood wherever gold is traded, so a 22 carat bangle bought for a wedding in Adelaide still weighs as gold decades later, receipt or no receipt. That is why the traditional wedding metal is high carat: a bridal set is a gift and a store of value in the same object, and at 91.6 per cent it never has to choose.

Twenty-two, beside its neighbours.

Every step down the scale trades colour and gold for hardness and price. Here is 22 against the two it is most often weighed against.

22 caratstamped 916: The page you are on. The deepest colour, the most gold at the scale, and work built heavier to carry the softness. It is the carat that bridal sets are traditionally made in.
21 caratstamped 875: One part less gold and noticeably harder. Crisp pattern keeps its edges through daily wear, and much of the everyday gold of the Gulf and South Asia is struck in it.
18 caratstamped 750: Three parts in four. Paler and harder wearing, the fine-jewellery end of Australian retail. A quarter of its weight was never gold at all.

We stock 21 and 22 and nothing below them. If you are choosing between the two, 21 carat makes its own case →