What Does a 925 Ring Mean?

The stamps on jewelry which identify the metal purity are referred to as purity marks or quality marks because they usually state metal purity levels. Authenticating valuable jewelry depends heavily on hallmarks since they serve as official identification markers. 

The marks appear on noble precious metal pieces of platinum palladium silver and especially gold. The markings on jewelry identify both the creator and authenticator of each piece together with its production location. 

What Are Purity Marks on Jewelry?

A purity mark stands as the typical stamp you will find on jewelry. Standards of fineness and quality marks and purity marks indicate what proportion of metal within a piece actually consists of pure material. The examination starts with an assessment of gold purity stamps.

Gold Purity

The purity of gold is determined by measuring the karats even though the weight standard for gemstones is different. The purity of gold expressed through Karats represents the exact ratio between pure gold contents and other non-gold materials in the metal. A metal’s purity level in the market gets its name from the "karatage."

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Basic gold with 100 percent purity attains its 24K (24 karats) definition which corresponds to a 100 percent ratio when compared to percentage standards. An 18K rating becomes 75 percent pure gold as the 18:6 ratio demonstrates. 10K rating leads to 41.67 percent purity since it comprises 10:14 proportions.  Gold purity stamps include either the karatage or percentage indication or both types of markings adjacent to each other. 

Silver Purity

Silver purity measurement follows the same approach as gold with “fineness” numbered identically to the gold karats' ratios. The silver purity hallmarks display only the percentage of pure silver with no decimal points. 

Gold jewelry bears stamping percentage marks which show numbers without decimal notation. The stamp indicates 75 percent even though the number represents 750 parts contained within 1,000.  One of the most well-known silver purity marks is 925, but what does a 925 stamp on jewelry mean?

925 Stamp on Jewelry

Sterling silver stands identically with 925 silver since they share the same composition of 92.5% pure silver in combination with 7.5% other metals. Sterling silver stands as an equivalent term to 925 silver because it represents metal components with pure silver at 92.5 percent and other blending metals at 7.5 percent. The law of some nations determines which metals qualify for sterling silver status. 

So, is 925-stamped silver real silver? 925 silver along with sterling silver goes by the same definition which indicates true silver content of 92.5 percent. The highest possible silver purity in jewelry amounts to 999 percent pure silver but the material remains too soft for application.  You will discover 925 stamps on gold jewelry that carry the marking. 

Number Hallmark Meanings on Jewelry

When looking at jewelry you will come across numerous metal stamps that include 925 but also many additional numbers.  The metal with an 825 stamp on jewelry consists of 82.5 percent pure material. The 825 stamp on jewelry indicates that the metal contains 82.5 percent pure content. For gold, this translates to 19K. 

What does 916 mean on jewelry? You can identify the metal purity by reading a 916 stamp because it signifies 91.6 percent purity. For gold, this translates to 22K.  This list contains the average gold karat ages along with their stamped percentage values you will commonly encounter:

• 24K; 24k; 24 Karat; 99.9%; 999

• 18K; 18k; 18 Karat; 75%; 750

• 14K; 14k; 14 Karat; 58.5%; 585

• 12K; 12k; 12 Karat; 50%; 500

• 10K; 10k; 10 Karat; 41.7%; 417

Gold pieces can exist between pure gold standards exhibiting values such as 22K or 16K. The division of karats by 24 will provide you with the purity rate — 22K gold yields 0.916 or 91.6 percent purity which might be noted as 916 in hallmarks.

Primary gold used for jewelry is typically too soft in its 24K purity. Gold jewelry mostly contains 22K gold which represents the most refined version of gold available.

The stamp “1/20” with karatage and possibly “GF” indicates gold filling in jewelry where gold represents 5 percent (1/20) of the total weight. A 14K gold-filled ring would bear either “GF 14/20” or “1/20 14K GF” stamped on its inside.  Most metal purity stamps in jewelry feature numbers but two exceptions exist.

Ring Sizes and Gemstone Weights

The dimensions of rings can be identified through stamped numbers such as 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. The weight of gemstones set in precious rings sometimes appears with a designated affidavit as carats. 

Gemstone weights receive stamping either as independent numbers (‘0.75 " or" “.75” for 0.75 carats) or as numbers with ‘ct’ after them. Multiple diamond rings with pave settings usually bear a hallmark which shows the combined weight of all diamonds using the term “tdw” after the number.

What Do the Letters Stamped on Jewelry Mean?

Most hallmarks feature numerical information but letter markings can be seen as well. Multiple meanings exist which can be identified through such markings on jewelry. 

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Type of Metal

Identifying the value of your jewelry requires knowing what kind of metal it contains which hallmarks through letters help with this task. The letter marks found on jewelry indicate the type of metal that was used through these correspondences:

• Plumb Gold (P is usually 14K gold while KP may denote any karatage starting at 18KP higher.

• PLAT or PT— Platinum 

• S.S. or Steel or St. Steel — Stainless Steel

• Silver or S. Silver or STG or STER — Sterling Silver

• Pd or Pall — Palladium

The tungsten or titanium are just written out in full. ‘German Silver’ or ‘Nickel Silver’ sounds beautiful but don’t contain silver as its name suggests, containing instead copper, nickel, and/or zinc.  Specifically, there are letter hallmarks for gold jewelry. 

Letter Markings on Gold Jewelry

You are familiar with the gold purity hallmarks but there are also some letter hallmarks on some gold jewelry. First of all, karats can be written as K, Kt, Karats or WGD. 

• Other gold jewelry letter markings include:

• GF or G.F. — Gold-Filled

• HGE or GE — Gold Electroplated (also called Gold-Plated)

• V20 — Rolled Gold

• Gold Vermeil (also called Heavy Gold Electroplated) — V or HGE

However, these markings usually happen after karatage. Let’s take an example of “14K GP” in where ‘14K’ means 14k gold chosen in the plating process.

Meaning of Symbols Stamped on Jewelry

You can customize jewelry with the etched symbols but some of the symbols can provide you information about your jewelry’s originating where and the specification.

Shapes Surrounding Purity Marks

Depending on the metal the numerical purity marks may be surrounded by an associated shape. Common metal purity symbols are:

• Silver — Horizontal oval 

• Palladium — Connected, vertical ovals around each number

• Gold — Octagon elongated horizontally

• Platinum — Pentagon pointing upwards

• Maker’s Mark Symbols

If anything, maker’s marks are made up of letters and shapes. 

If it had an arrow stamp inside a ring and the arrow pierces the letter “U” from left to right, it may have been made by Uncas Manufacturing Co. in Rhode Island, USA.  There are hundreds of designers, jewelers and goldsmiths, the odds are that almost every maker’s mark is never going to be heard of. 

Date Stamps on Jewelry

However, in 1478, the UK began requiring precious Jewelry to be bound with the year of its beginning (which, technically speaking, France started doing in 1427). Since 1999 the change was to date hallmarks still being a requirement but being only voluntary, and many jewelers and assay offices continue to use date hallmarks. 

However the dates are written as letters corresponding to a year and beginning again every 25 years. As I, J, and L look similar, the only letters not used are these three letters. For example, the cycle currently started in 2000 misses letter I, moving from H for 2007 to J for 2008.  As different countries had different timelines, the number of the year corresponding to the letter may change. The symbols of nations and the assay offices come in handy there. 

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