As with all trends, its popularity ebbs and flows through the years. In the 1980s, Raheem the Dream and Kilo Ali popularized grills in Atlanta. Not long after, Eddie Plein, owner of Eddie’s Gold Teeth located in New York kickstarted the trend there. Eddie has made grills for many celebrities such as Flavor Flav, Lil Jon, Ludacris, and many more. Nowadays, gold grills have expanded in popularity and design. There are companies that can send you mold kits in the mail as well as jewelry stores that offer gold teeth in most major cities. Gold teeth don’t even have to be just gold now. For pops of color, enamel of any color can be added to grills. For those with more expensive tastes, diamonds or other gemstones can be added to the teeth.
There are two main ways to manufacture gold teeth, grills, or grillz. One important factor to consider when you’re purchasing a grill is the quality of the gold. The minimum gold karat you should even think of putting in your mouth is 10k and it should be stamped with whatever karat it’s made of. Wearing grills that are either less pure or unmarked is putting your oral health at great risk. The first and earlier method involved reshaping the individual teeth so they would socket into the grill but this used up much more time and labor than most people are comfortable with. Nowadays, gold grills are fitted to a custom dental mold and are much easier to put in and take out. The molding process is very simple, you just bite into a dental mold filled with alginate impression material and hold for a couple minutes. Once the impression is set, dye stone is poured into the impression to produce an exact mold of your teeth. The mold is then sent to a manufacturer where they’ll shape a sheet of wax over the teeth and add in whatever design elements were requested. After that, the wax model is sent through the same casting and finishing process as any other piece of custom jewelry. The finished gold teeth are sent back to us where you can come pick them up and get a final fitting done. Usually the teeth snap right in but occasionally the jostling around in shipping or force applied during polishing may change the fit but it’s nothing a few minutes of tweaking can’t fix.
]]>There are two methods to create synthetic gem-grade diamonds. The first is high pressure high temperature or HPHT. A diamond seed is placed into a specialized press along with a high purity carbon source. The chamber of the press is then brought up to the same pressure and temperature as the same environment diamonds are created in the earth’s mantle. This method is the cheaper of the two as it requires less precision and preparation of materials.
The second method is carbon vapor deposition or CVD. It is a much more complicated process and makes use of incredibly complex chemical reactions. In very simple terms, it is similar to making your own rock candy where sugar crystals form onto a skewer when it’s submerged in a hot, sugar rich solution and left to cool. This method is more time consuming and expensive but it’s more flexible and can be adjusted to fine tune the final product. Another advantage is CVD machines can create much larger diamonds than those created through HPHT.
Identifying a lab made stone is an extremely difficult task. The Gemological Institute of America is constantly creating and refining tests to differentiate lab made and natural stones. One method is to view the diamond’s crystal growth pattern under strong magnification and specific lighting conditions. Natural diamonds will show a concentric pattern as heat and pressure are applied uniformly from all directions. HPHT diamonds will display a cross shaped pattern as the presses exert pressure from a discernible number of directions. CVD diamonds are grown vertically, layer by layer, so they will display regular striations throughout.
Diamonds, whether they’re natural or man-made, won’t be perfect. It’s expected that they’ll have inclusions of some sort or they won’t be perfectly colorless. Creating diamonds from scratch is possible so it’s no surprise enhancing a diamond is entirely possible as well. To remove black inclusions, a laser is used to drill down to the offending inclusion. Once there is a clear path to the inclusion, the diamond is soaked in acid to dissolve the amorphous carbon away. These laser drilled holes are invisible to the naked eye but can be viewed using a jeweler’s loupe. Some companies who enhance diamonds will be kind enough to engrave their diamonds as such. Below is an image of a clarity enhanced diamond under magnification. It shows the telltale vertical drill marks and on one of the facets, you can barely make out a 'CE' inscription marking it as clarity enhanced.
Another method used to enhance diamonds is fracture filling. Laser drilling is used to gain access to unwanted fractures within the diamond. The fractures are then filled with a solution that closely matches the diamond’s refractive index. Fracture filling can be detected more easily than laser drilling. The telltale sign is random flashes of light appearing that don’t correspond to any facet when rotating the diamond.
Another characteristic of a diamond that can be enhanced is the color. The ideal diamond is completely colorless but most diamonds are going to have a touch of some color, usually yellow or brown. To permanently change the color of a diamond, either irradiation or high pressure high temperature (HPHT) treatments are used. While diamonds are preferably white and colorless, irradiating diamonds can be requested to impart a bold, vibrant color. During the first step of irradiation, the diamond will be either green, blue, or black on the surface. Further annealing treatments are used to further change the color of the stone to yellow, orange, brown, or even pink. To remove color from a stone and push it higher up the color scale, HPHT is commonly used. This process works best with brown diamonds. Depending on the nature of a diamond’s coloration, HPHT treatment can also be used to intensify the color of yellow diamonds.
Hopefully you learned something you didn't know about man-made or enhanced diamonds. It's important to remember that just because a diamond is created or enhanced by a machine, it doesn't make it any less of a diamond. It loses a significant portion of its value, but in every sense, it is still a diamond. A diamond is cluster of carbon whose crystal structure is diamond cubic. That's it, there's no requirement beyond how the carbon atoms have arranged themselves.
That said, there is a reason why people would choose to purchase a man-made or enhanced diamond. In the case of man-made diamonds, there might be minor savings or a moral obligation felt by the purchaser to avoid purchasing a mined diamond. A few decades ago, conflict diamonds were a major issue but with the introduction of the Kimberley Process, the problem has been all but eradicated. The Kimberley process essentially ensures that the entire diamond supply chain is run through proper channels and not exploiting anybody's labor. From the miner to the cutter to the setter to the retail store to the end customer, everyone involved is only involved in transacting with businesses who are certified as legitimate, conflict free, sources.
What might drive a person to purchase an enhanced diamond is much simpler than for a man-made diamond. In these instances, it usually comes down to price. A huge draw of diamonds is their natural beauty. From finding the diamond all the way through the typical stone cutting process, countless steps are taken to maximize the quality of the diamond at the end. Flaws like inclusions and coloring add to the character of the diamond and enhancements like fracture filling ruin the natural beauty of a diamond by affecting the inside of it.
]]>The next easiest C of diamonds to grasp is carat weight. As you probably guessed, this is the diamond’s weight expressed in a very special unit called the carat. A carat is equivalent to 200 milligrams. Carat weight can be a little tricky to surmise when you’re just looking at a diamond. As a diamond gets larger, its carat weight will naturally increase along with it. Jewelers usually measure diamonds with calipers to estimate their weight. This works because for any shape of diamond, the facets should be cut the same exact way so each diamond is just a scaled up or down version of any diamond of the same make. If a jeweler was the one to set the diamond, they make note of the exact carat weight before it gets placed into a mounting. However, if a ring comes in secondhand, the weight can be estimated by measuring the stone’s diameter but to get a truly accurate weight, the stone must be removed and weighed by itself.
Next up is Clarity and this one takes some research and practice to accurately grade a diamond for. A diamond’s clarity grade indicates how much the diamond’s internal flaws impact the overall look of the diamond. The very top of the scale is FL or Flawless where there are no inclusions or blemishes within the diamond at all. The very bottom of the clarity grades is I3 where the inclusions are so large or numerous, the stone offers almost none of a typical diamond’s brilliance or fire. The full spectrum of clarity grades is as follows: FL > IF > VVS1 > VVS2 > VS1 > VS2 > SI1> SI2 > I1 > I2 > I3. After Flawless comes IF or Internally Flawless where there are no visible inclusions under 10x magnification. From the VVS1 range down to the SI2 range, the inclusions become easier and easier to identify with 10x magnification. When you get into the I1 to I3 range, no magnification is needed and the flaws of the diamond can be seen with the naked eye.
And last but certainly not least is Color. An ideal diamond has no coloring to it at all and would land a D on the color scale but most diamonds will have just a hint of yellow or brown to them. The GIA color scale concerns itself with how yellow a diamond is. This scale goes from D where the diamond is colorless all the way down to Z where the yellow coloring is a light yellow coloring. Now what makes grading color in a diamond so difficult? Unlike the first 2 Cs discussed where the cut was identifying the shape and carat weight was simply weighing the diamond, color is graded on a very wide scale. And for Clarity, there was a spectrum with distinct grades but in total, only 11 grades ranging from a stunningly perfect diamond to one so included you might have doubts it’s a diamond at all. With color grading, there is still the same progressive scale but with 23 grades. The difference between a D color and a Z color diamond in the eyes of the typical person probably isn’t much but considering there’s another 21 grades in between them, you can start to see why grading color is such a challenge.There are also environmental factors at play. If you, like me, spend most of your day in front of a computer monitor, the cool blue light being emitted from the screen will make diamonds appear more yellow than they actually are. On the other hand, if you spend all day outside in the sun and come inside to grade diamonds for color, the diamonds will appear whiter than they actually are. There are a couple of ways to combat the effects of eye strain. The easiest method is to hold the diamond up to a sheet of specialty color grading paper. The paper provides a perfectly neutral backdrop for you to compare the diamond’s color to. GIA’s method is much more extensive and reliable. The graders are placed into a standardized viewing environment determined to have minimal effect on the graders’ color perception. GIA also has put together a set of masterstones, a series of similarly sized diamonds, one for each color grade to make grading color a little easier. An additional step GIA takes to standardize color grading is to have 2 color graders independently submit their own grades. If the grades don’t match, the stone is sent to another pair of graders until a consensus is reached.
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While having all these different colors of gold can add variety to anybody's wardrobe, it does also add an extra step to properly maintaining jewelry. The rhodium on white gold jewelry does eventually fade and reveal the yellowish white gold base underneath. And the copper in rose gold might start discoloring after extended wear. But fear not, the methods to revive the color are very straightforward. In the case of white gold, all it takes is a quick visit to your local jewelry for a dip in the rhodium bath. Rose gold is even easier, all it needs is a quick touch up on the polishing wheel.
Gold can come in other colors such as purple, blue, green, and even black. These colors are achieved by using more complicated processes and specialized materials some of which are toxic and pose serious health risks.
]]>On the other hand, there are markings that indicate a piece of jewelry isn’t genuine gold. If you find HGE, GE, or GP on a piece of jewelry, it is gold electroplated. Respectively, they stand for Heavy Gold Electroplated, Gold Electroplated, and Gold Plated. The very outer layer is gold that’s been electrochemically bonded to a base metal. The total amount of gold in pieces marked as such is negligible and not worth processing on a single item basis. If you see an ‘RG’ stamp, it means the jewelry was created with rolled gold. It sounds like a fancy elaborate process to manufacture jewelry, but in essence, it is very similar to gold plated jewelry. Another mark you might see is GF which stands for Gold Filled. Gold filled jewelry is a little more nuanced than the plated jewelry. This specific hallmark will be preceded by a fraction such as 1/10 or 1/20 which details what portion of the total weight of the jewelry is genuine gold. For example, a ring stamped with ‘1/20 14kt GF’ means it is gold filled but 1/20th of the weight is 14k gold. While the gold content of an individual piece of gold filled jewelry is miniscule, it’s significantly greater than gold plated and larger refineries might be open to processing it if enough of it comes in.
Now onto markings for stuff that isn’t gold at all. The most common stamp you’ll see is probably 925. The 925 mark is used for sterling silver jewelry which is 92.5% pure silver. Sterling silver can also be marked simply with a ‘Sterling’ stamp. For a piece of silver to be sold as Sterling silver, it must be marked with either Sterling or 925. You might see silverware sets marked with ‘Silver’ or ‘Silversmiths’ but there’s no guarantee they’ll be Sterling silver. It is absolutely crucial that if you’re shopping for Sterling silver, you locate and verify the 925 or Sterling marking.
Next up is platinum and platinum jewelry can be marked in several ways. The easiest to distinguish stamps simply read Platinum, Plat, or Pt. Paired with the stamp indicating platinum will be a mark to indicate the purity of the platinum. Most often, you’ll see stamps reading 900 or 950 meaning the piece of jewelry is 90% or 95% pure platinum.
There are quite a few other hallmarks you’ll see on jewelry that aren’t detailed in the previous sections. If it’s some stamped numbers in a piece of diamond jewelry that don’t match up with those previously mentioned, there’s a chance the manufacturer marked the total carat weight on the item. To confirm this, you can consult any receipts that might have come with it or take it to a jeweler to count and measure the diamonds. A task like this is pretty simple so it should only take a few minutes and can be completed while you wait. And finally, there are maker’s marks. These are used to indicate who made the piece of jewelry. These are most often a set of letters but can be incredibly ornate like an eagle and lion standing on either side of the letter R on certain Reed & Barton silverware items. When in doubt, you can always perform a quick internet search to decipher the markings on jewelry and silverware.
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What does all this have to do with jewelry? Gold in its purest form has a very rich yellow color and can easily be polished to a perfect mirror finish. As far as value goes, if purchased directly from a bullion site, you will be charged a minimal markup and a shipping charge so you’ll hardly lose anything if you can find the right buyer. These all sound like great reasons to make jewelry out of the stuff but you’ll have a very hard time finding 24k gold jewelry anywhere. Naturally, there are a few factors preventing this practice. Gold in its purest form is incredibly malleable, heavy, and expensive. Pure 24k gold can be dented with just your fingernail and a fair amount of effort. One cup of water weighs half a pound while a cup of gold would weigh about 10 pounds. As of January 2020, that cup of gold would be worth around $225,000. As a result of these factors, most 24k gold is kept in the form of bullion bars. One way to wear 24k gold bullion is to place it into a bezel similar to the one pictured below.
On the other end of the spectrum of gold purity is 10k gold. 10k gold is only 10/24ths or 41.7% pure gold. What makes up the other 58.3% of that gold? The remaining parts are usually a mixture of silver, nickel, palladium, and several other metals. This mixture does vary from manufacturer to manufacturer so don’t be alarmed if a jeweler mentions a metal not in that list. All these metals alloyed with the gold affect it in significant ways. Those metals are all naturally gray in color which makes the color shift from the harsh, almost orange, reddish-yellow of pure gold to the paler, soft yellow everyone is more familiar with. These other metals are also much harder and less dense than pure gold giving the finished piece much more durability and more manageable weight. And finally, with the exception of palladium, these other metals are cheaper than pure gold making 10k gold jewelry a good deal more accessible to the average consumer.
Gold Karat | Gold Content | Non-gold Content |
10k | 41.7% | 58.3% |
14k | 58.3% | 41.7% |
18k | 75% | 25% |
21k | 87.5% | 12.5% |
22k | 91.7% | 8.3% |
24k | 100% | 0% |
As an industry standard, 10k gold is the minimum purity used in jewelry. Any lower than that and the non-gold metals will be prone to tarnishing and diminishing the appearance of the jewelry. Generally, jewelry that sees less frequent wear or holds more personal significance will use a higher karat gold in its construction. For example, most simple chains and pendants will use 10k gold as they’re appropriate for everyday wear and experience a lot of movement throughout the day. Taking a step up, engagement rings are usually made using 14k or even 18k gold. 18k gold sees a lot of use in luxury watches such as those made by Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and many others. In some regions, 22k gold jewelry is owned by families but only ever brought out and worn during crucial life events and celebrations.
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