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What is colored gold?
Is it real gold? And is color gold more valuable than yellow gold?
Find out below!
Table of Contents
What is Colored Gold?
Colored gold is gold that has been altered in color through various techniques, primarily by alloying it with other metals.
Pure gold has a natural yellowish-red hue, but by combining it with metals like copper, silver, palladium, or nickel, goldsmiths create a wide range of colors, including white, rose, green, and even black gold.
Colored golds are classified in three groups:
- Alloys with copper and silver in various proportions, producing white, green rose, pink and red golds. These are typically malleable alloys.
- Intermetallic compounds, producing blue and purple golds, as well as other rarer types of colored gold. These are typically brittle, but can be used as gems and inlays.
- Surface treatments, such as oxide layers (for example black gold).
Pure 100% (in practice, 99.9% or better) gold is 24 karat by default, so all colored golds are necessarily less pure than this, commonly 18k (75%), 14k (58.5%), 10k (41.6%), or 9k (37.5%).
Types of Colored Gold
Below are all the types of colored gold you can find in jewelry stores.
White Gold
White gold is an alloy of white metals such as nickel, platinum, palladium, silver and yellow gold.
Its exact metal composition varies, but it’s typically 75% yellow gold and 25% some other white metal.
Jewelers add the above mentioned white metals to yellow gold to give it exclusive look and to increase white gold jewelry’s durability.
Jewelers also use rhodium to coat white gold jewelry items and make them even whiter, more durable and resistant to wear and tear.
Rose Gold
Rose gold is an alloy of yellow gold and copper. Copper gives rose gold its distinctive pinkish-red hue, and the copper content determines the rose gold’s color intensity. Meaning higher copper content leads to a deeper shade of red.
Yellow gold and copper are primary metals in a rose gold alloy, but occasionally silver in small amount is added to adjust the color and improve the metal’s workability and durability.
Red Gold
Red gold is an alloy of yellow gold and copper+ trace amount of silver and other metals.
Copper adds hardness and durability to red gold and also gives it its intense reddish hue. The copper content determines the color intensity; higher copper content leads to a deeper red.
Red gold is visually similar to rose gold, with the latter being more amber in color than rose.
Spangold
Spangold is a specialized alloy that combines copper, gold and aluminum to create a unique material with shape-memory properties.
Spangold gets it’s name from the distinctive “spangled” appearance that comes from a martensitic-type phase transformation induced on a polished surface.
Spangold’s composition is 76% gold, 18% copper, and 6% aluminum and is made with either 18K or 23K gold. Varying compositions of copper and aluminum give spangold different colors, including yellow and rose (rose spangold is visually similar to red gold, pink gold and rose gold).
Green Gold
Green gold is an alloy of silver and gold. It has a greenish hue due to high silver content. Nickel, zinc and copper are often added to green gold alloy to strengthen it.
Green gold can be natural or man-made. Man-made green gold used to be highly toxic because of cadmium that was added to the alloy to achieve a pronounced green tint. Just 2-4% cadmium was enough for this purpose. Cadmium is no longer used in green gold production.
Natural green gold is called electrum.
Purple Gold
Purple gold is an alloy of aluminum and yellow gold.
Purple gold alloy is made of 79% gold and 21% aluminum, forming the intermetallic compound AuAl2 with a distinct purple hue. Purple gold is a rare and challenging gold alloy to create and this makes it one of the most expensive types of colored gold you can own.
Blue Gold
Blue gold is an alloy of yellow gold and gallium and indium. The latter two metals give this gold alloy a distinct shade of blue.
Blue gold is different from other colored golds because there’re two ways of producing it.
Yellow gold alloyed with indium in proportions 44:56% gives blue gold. Yellow gold alloyed with gallium in proportions 58.5:41.5% gives blue gold.
Pure blue gold doesn’t exist because blue gold is too brittle to make long-lasting jewelry. But blue gold is still used in jewelry design, specifically for high-end ornamental applications.
Is Fools Gold a Type of Colored Gold?
No, fools gold isn’t a type of colored gold. Fool’s gold, scientifically known as pyrite (iron sulfide, FeS₂), is a naturally occurring mineral that resembles real gold but has minimal value.
Pyrite is abundant in various geological environments across the world. Unlike precious metals, fools gold coins and bars don’t exist due to lack of demand. Though rare, marcasite jewelry made from polished pyrite does exist.
What is Colored Gold? Conclusion
Colored gold is gold that has been altered in color through various techniques, primarily by alloying it with other metals.
Pure gold has a natural yellowish-red hue, but by combining it with metals like copper, silver, palladium, or nickel, goldsmiths create a wide range of colors, including white, rose, green, and even black gold.
References:
- Colored gold- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colored_gold
- Colored Gold: Usage and History- https://www.vrai.com/journal/post/colored-gold
- Gold is my favorite material to work with when I make wedding and engagement rings. There are different colors of gold- https://makiokamoto.com/colors-of-gold/
- Different Colors of Gold: Learn About The Luxuries Shades Of Gold- https://www.goldenbirdjewels.com/blogs/topic/different-color-of-gold
Nikola Roza
Nikola Roza is a blogger behind Nikola Roza- SEO for the Poor and Determined. He writes for bloggers who don't have huge marketing budget but still want to succeed. Nikola is passionate about precious metals IRAs and how to invest in gold and silver for a safer financial future. Learn about Nikola here.
