Green gold alloys are made by leaving the copper out of the alloy mixture and just using gold and silver. It actually appears as a greenish-yellow rather than green. Eighteen karat green gold would therefore contain a mix of 75% gold and 25% silver (or 73% gold and 27% silver). Fired enamels adhere better to these alloys.
Green gold was known to Lydians as long ago as 860 BC under the name electrum, a naturally-occurring alloy of silver and gold.
Cadmium can be added to gold alloys in amounts of up to 4% to achieve a green color. The alloy of 75% gold, 23% copper, and 2% cadmium yields light-green 18-karat gold. The alloy of 75% gold, 15% silver, 6% copper, and 4% cadmium yields a dark-green alloy. Cadmium is, however, highly toxic.
Read more about this topic: Colored Gold
Famous quotes containing the words green and/or gold:
“The bud of the apple is desire, the down-falling gold,
The catbird’s gobble in the morning half-awake
These are real only if I make them so. Whistle
For me, grow green for me and, as you whistle and grow green,
Intangible arrows quiver and stick in the skin
And I taste at the root of the tongue the unreal of what is real.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“An inch of gold can not buy an inch of time.”
—Chinese proverb.