The karat is a unit of measurement of the content of gold as well as the weight of gemstones. In ancient Greek, the word for carob was ‘keration’, which was a loan from the Arabic word girat, while in the Latin is found as cerato, from which it was derived which eventually gave rise to the French and English name karat.
The weight of the carob seed was defined as the smallest unit of measurement for gold and precious stones. One karat (1 karat) is equal to 1/5 of a gram i.e. 1ct = 0,20 gram. Because the carob seeds are uniform in size and maintain their weight unchanged, regardless of external conditions, the the goldsmiths and silversmiths of Venice used them as a unit of weight for measuring weight of precious stones and metals. The Karat in gold is used as a unit of measurement for the weight of weights and weights in gold. The karat is used to measure the gold content of a piece of jewellery. In precious stones, the carat is a unit of measurement of the weight of the stone.
Gold jewellery is available on the market 6, 8, 9, 14, 18, 22 Karats. It is considered that a gold jewellery is divided into 24 pieces of gold, the Karats are the pieces of solid gold that make it up. 6 karat gold jewellery is found around the world and come from Asian countries such as India and China, while in Greek market are not available at all. The same applies to 8-karat jewellery, while 9 karat jewellery is used are widely used in Europe, but in Greece they are hardly used at all.
In the Greek market they are mainly used 14-karat jewellery containing 58,33 % of 14 karat jewellery solid gold and 41,67 % of alloys. Also more widespread in the Greek market market and worldwide are the gold jewellery 18 karat gold which contain 75% pure gold and 75% pure gold gold and 25% of alloys. The 22 karat gold jewellery is considered jewellery luxury and are manufactured rarely made. Their composition is: 91.66% pure gold and 8.34% of alloys. Each piece of jewellery is marked with the purity. The purity of its metals is determined by the “per cent” system. per thousand. So an 18-karat piece of jewellery with 75% of the gold content solid gold is marked 750. Similarly, 14 and 22 carat jewellery are marked 585 and 916. 24 karat gold is too soft which is why no jewellery is made with this content.