Jewelry made of either silver or gold is a precious commodity. One has got to be vigilant when buying a chain of gold or a silver ring.
Buying it for your wife for her birthday or as a present to give on your daughter’s marriage? You’ve got to make a choice backed by research.
Most people aren’t really familiar with what those stamps mean on the jewelry.
Whenever we say “Gold,” – it doesn’t always mean pure gold.
It does exist, but it’s too soft, so it’s practically impossible to have items made of pure gold.
Those who claim for it are nothing but scammers roaming around to prey on you.
To validate the quality of the gold, stamps or the markings are imprinted on the jewelry. These stamps are more like codes, illustrating your jewelry’s gold or silver content.
The quality of gold is measured in Karat; the purest gold contains 24 karats (24K) of gold.
This means if someone claims to have a 24K Gold, it simply means that he has the purest form.
There’s nothing in there. But one can’t carve out jewelry with 24k gold as it’s too soft to maintain its shape.
That is why another metal is added in some percentage into the gold or silver to augment its strength.
Like, if gold is 18K, it means 18/24K equals 0.75 or 75% of gold in whatever commodity you’ve bought.
In the United States, Gold is basically present in 10, 14, 18 and 24 karats, while the remaining part is contributed by metals like copper, nickel, and cobalt.
These metals add strength to the gold.
Outside the US, it’s not how gold quality is represented.
To represent the 75% gold quality – it would numerically be expressed as 750. This 750 is the parts out of 1000.
The same goes for silver, where the quality is stamped on the jewelry.
EHC is nothing but the hallmark of the manufacturers. This has nothing to do with the content of silver/gold in jewelry.
These jewelry stamps represent where a particular chain or a ring lies on the quality scale.
Now, there are different ways to double-check the claim upheld by the makers. One of the most used ones is to do an acid test.
Drops of acid are made to react to the surface to see how the metal reacts.
Magnetic pullers are used to determine if there’s any iron in there.
Or a more advanced technique is simply to run an XRF test which straightaway, based on the reflection off the surface, gives us the gold or any other metal content in jewelry.
EHC stamps and markings are nothing but an advocate of quality. Usually, these markings depict whether the gold /silver is just coated over the surface or is entirely filled.
These stamps are the measure to gauge the percentage of precious metal content in the jewelry.
What does EHC mean on gold?
We see EHC imprinted on the gold chains or the bracelets we buy. Have you ever wondered what it even means?
See, someone definitely would have made those chains, bracelets, or rings of gold. EHC is added before the quality of the gold, e.g., EHC 14k, which simply means it’s 14 karats of gold, or the other way said, 14/24 equals 58.3% of gold.
EHC is the manufacturer’s stamp that accounts for the maker who set up this percentage.
Don’t confuse EHC with the quality, as it isn’t. It’s merely a hallmark of the manufacturer.
What is EHC 925 on Jewelry?
As said earlier, Gold quantity is measured in 10k, 14k, 18k and 24k, so where does this EHC 925 come from?
EHC 925 depicts the amount of silver in the commodity you’ve got your hands on. EHC 925 equals 92.5 percent of pure silver in the item, with 7.5 percent compensated with another element. Sterling is what people call EHC 925.
As gold, 100% of it does exist but can’t be used to create jewelry items. Similarly, EHC 925 is the purest form available out there.
What does EHC 14k mean?
There basically are defined standard quantities depicting the quality or content of any precious metal in the jewelry.
As we’ve said before, gold is measured in 10,14, 18, and 24 karats, while 17 karats make sense, but it’s not the standard quantity collectively embraced. So, that is the reason it isn’t imprinted or labeled over the rings or chains.
Whenever there is EHC 14k over the chain, it straightaway means that it’s 14/24 karats or 58.3 percent of gold, with an additional approximately 42 percent covered by other metal (Nickle, Cobalt, Copper).
If you still are confused or stuck at any point, do let us know in the comments – we’d reach out to you.
