One day someone saw a shiny piece of yellow gleaming in a creek bed and picked it up. As they began to play with it, they saw that it could be beaten into almost any shape they wanted it to become. As soon as people began making jewelry to wear for the beauty of it as well as to display their wealth, other people began buying gold jewelry for their own use or to melt it down to make other objects from it. 

Gold quickly became a symbol for the powerful and the wealthy due to its unusual beauty and other properties. Gold helped turn money into what it is today and it also helped end the bartering system of days gone by. The portability of this precious metal made it especially popular with gold jewelry buyers since it was easy to hide and also because it was so valuable in small amounts. Much of the early caches of gold were made into the form of jewelry, especially chains. When a person wanted to buy something, they would pay for it with a link from their golden chain.

Over time, gold jewelry buyers realized that a standard measurement needed to be created so that everyone bought and sold their gold the same way almost everywhere they went. While in the beginning gold jewelry buyers used carob seeds to measure out their gold, eventually they all went to what is now known as the 'troy' system. In conjunction with measuring the gold in troy ounces, metallurgists of the day devised a way to measure the purity of the gold. This system used 'carats' which are not to be confused with 'karats' with a 'k'. These 'karats' are used to measure the weight of a gemstone.

Most commonly, gold is marked 24k which is pure gold, 22k, 18k which is the most common for jewelry, and 10k which is less than fifty percent gold. Gold alloys which are less than 10k can not be labeled with a karat amount.  Several metals are used for alloying gold. Copper and silver make yellow gold. Silver also makes white gold and so does zinc, nickel and palladium. Copper is used to make pink gold and zinc, silver and copper are used to make green gold. The ratio of gold to the other precious metals determines what the color of the gold will be. Pure gold will always be yellow. Some people are allergic to jewelry that is worn against the skin and that is due to the nickel content in the gold. The person with metal allergies should purchase 24 karat gold since true allergies to pure gold are extremely rare.