Gold commonly occurred in its native form and it was not combined with other elements, therefore it was one of the first metals to be mined.

Ancient civilizations used gold lavishly in decorating tombs and temples, and gold objects made more than 5,000 years ago have been found in Egypt. The graves of nobles at the ancient Citadel of Mycenae near Nauplion, Greece, yielded a great variety of gold figurines, masks, cups, diadems, and jewelry, plus hundreds of decorated beads and buttons. These elegant works of art were created by skilled craftsmen more than 3,500 years ago.

Pure 100% gold is alwasy yellow and usually too soft to make jewelry. To make it stronger it is mixed with other metals like silver, nickel, zinc and copper. The addition of metals determines the final color of gold. For example: white gold was originally developed to imitate platinum, and usually contains 25% of zinc and nickel.

There are many factors that determine the value of a gold jewelry:

Weight - gold is sold by weight (grams or ounces), the heavier the piece, the higher the gold content, therefore it is more expensive. The weight is expressed by karats.

The karat indicates the amount of pure gold in the metal. The higher the karat, the higher the percentage of pure gold in the metal. For example: 24 karat gold is 100% pure, 18 karat gold has 75% of pure gold, 14 karat gold has 58.3% of pure gold, and 10 karat gold has 41.6% of pure gold.

Design - one of a kind designer pieces are more expensive than other mass production ones.

Finish - special finishes to the metal such as sand-blasted or matte add to the final cost of the gold jewelry piece.