Bronze, a combination of copper and tin (not to be confused with brass which contains copper and zinc), jewelry comes in all shapes and sizes. As per the piece in the illustration, one can acquire bronze jewelry with various Celtic designs.
Category: Precious Metals (page 1 of 1)
The information in this section applies to metals used in jewelry making in general. Naturally, all Celtic jewelry is based on these principles as well.
Gold is the metal of choice for most people when it comes to jewelry. It is very attractive and wears well. It also holds its value quite well. The thing to consider when buying gold jewelry is how much gold is actually in the piece of jewelry. Fortunately, the amount of gold is indicated by the carat stamp on the piece (always indicated with a “K”…such as “10K”). The powers that be decided to divide the amount of gold into 24 pieces (thus a 1K stamp indicates the piece is 1 part gold and 23 parts of some other metal). The typical gold content is 10K (less than half gold), 12K (exactly half gold), 14K (more than half gold), 18K (three fourths gold), and 24K (99.9 % gold…there are always some impurities). Naturally, Celtic Jewelry comes in various grades of gold.
Sterling Silver jewelry is widely used in the jewelry industry. It wears well, looks attractive, and is relatively inexpensive. Most silver jewelry is sterling silver. Sterling silver is a mix of 92.5 percent silver and another metal. A mix of this nature is necessary because silver by itself is too soft. It doesn’t hold its shape very well and wears very quickly.
In fact, if you look at your sterling silver jewelry, it should be stamped with “925” to indicate that it contains 92.5% silver. If you can’t find this mark, the piece can’t be considered sterling silver. The ring illustrated above uses sterling silver with a dragon design.
