Gold Filled Jewelry Markings

Vintage gold jewelry with european purity marks.

Gold filled jewelry markings.

However such pieces usually have additional letters and numbers stamped that indicate that they are not solid gold. Some other markings mean a jewelry item is not fine karat gold. 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. Gold filled jewelry should also have markings indicating its 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. Standard purity marks used for vintage gold jewelry. 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. In europe purity marks are commonly shown as percentages.

The most common identifier of gold filled items is the sign gf after the karat number. Look for markings like pt or pt followed by a number to indicate platinum metal. See my other guide to find out more about the different kinds of gold plated jewelry including their markings. 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.