Pure gold (fine gold) is softer than pure silver but harder than tin. Its beauty and luster are unmatched by any alloyed golds. The extreme malleability, ductility, and softness of pure gold make it practically useless for jewelry applications. Alloying elements (other metals) are added to gold to increase the toughness and hardness of the gold alloy. While almost any metal can be alloyed (melted) with gold, only certain metals will not dramatically change the color or make the metal brittle.
Over time, certain percentages of gold have become legally recognized "karats." The karat indicates the amount of gold as a percentage of the total, i.e. 24 karat is 100 percent gold. Thus 14 karat is 14/24 gold or 58.33 percent gold. Gold standards vary around the world. In the United States, 24, 22, 18, 14, and 10 karat gold are the only karats allowed to be sold as karated gold.
Historically, yellow gold is the most popular choice for jewellery. Bergen offers jewellery manufactured from 18k and 14k gold. Our yellow gold contains no Nickel, making it the choice gold for customers with allergies.
White gold is alloyed with “white” metals such as palladium, silver, nickel and zinc to increase its strength for the use in jewellery. Its unmatched luster comes from a final plating with another precius metal, Rhodium. If you’re allergic to Nickel, Platinum is the way forward.
The romantic pink hue stems from copper being used as one of the alloys in rose gold to strengthen the metal. Trendy and free of Nickel making it an excellent choice.
Around 30 times rarer than Gold, hypoallergenic and super strong. All our Platinum is 95% pure and does not receive a plating of of any kind. Due to its added strength its often used for setting bigger diamonds. It’s also the best choice if any metal allergies are present.
