Several materials are used to design ornaments. Initially, copper ornaments were used in ancient civilizations. Then bronze and brass jewelry became popular. With the discovery of gold and silver, designing and wearing jewelry became an expensive affair. Yet the charm for ornamentation continued to grow. In addition to gold and silver, pearls, platinum, and diamonds are also popular materials used in jewelry design. That said, gold continues to remain the sought after material for ornaments. Fascination for gold jewelry has only grown over the centuries.

That said, we all know that gold prices are touching the sky. This makes it impossible for the salaried or worker class to afford ornaments made of pure gold. In order to reduce the cost of gold ornaments, a small amount of a less precious metal such as copper or silver is alloyed with gold to make ornaments.

The actual gold content in an alloy which is a combination of gold and a less expensive metal is measured in carats. In jewelry stores, you will notice on each golden object a numeral and the little "K" which is the symbol for "carat". Solid gold is indicated by the number 24, while 18 tells you that the jewel consists of an alloy which is made of 3/4 gold and 1/4 of something else not as costly.

It's hard to make ornaments out of pure gold, because gold is easily shaped but rather weak. Since it has low tensile strength, gold chips easily, and pure gold jewelry is susceptible to lots of nicks and cuts. On the market for buyers today, only biscuits or coins are available in pure 24 carat gold. There is, however, a wide selection of jewelry made from gold alloys.

If you are somebody who does not have a fortune to splurge on gold jewelry, do not be disheartened. There are several ways you can buy jewelry that looks equally good, if not better, than 22 carat jewelry. One way is buying semi precious jewelry that marries semi precious stones such as ruby, sapphire, and emerald with 14k jewelry.

You can also choose to get silver jewelry that has been plated with gold. It is visually similar to gold, and if the plating quality is high, it can be nearly impossible to tell the difference between the two with just the naked eye.