I bought a 14 karat gold belt buckle from one of my friends, he inherited it from his step-grandfather who was a pioneer in the oilfield in South Louisiana. While I wont mention his name or specifics, he was very influential to the people of this area, and when my buddy offered to sell it to me, I thought it would make a neat conversation piece. Now heres the dilemma. Should I get it made into a belt, or should I leave it as is? It has the guys initials on it. But belt or not, still a cool piece to have.
belt buckle
- Thread starter mobilaltima
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14k gold is fairly soft so I would get a nice glass holder for it and put it on display. Skip the belt. Ed
Well, 14Kt is actually an alloy made for durability on worn objects, I would not hesitate to wear a 14kt gold item myself. Generally 14kt is gold alloyed with silver, which is very tough, although it's difficult to know EXACTLY what the alloying metal(s) are / were, it's not really relevant since just about everything wears better than pure gold. It would matter if you were selling or assaying the item for it's precious metal content.
18kt is considered the purest gold alloy for wearing, 24kt is really display case material only. If this guy was actually in the gold mining business, he presumably had access to higher content gold if he wanted. Just the fact that it's 14kt to me means it was intended to be worn.
I have friends in the Gold mining business and also know two custom Goldsmiths and one of their employees very well. They routinely collect old rings, necklaces, etc and melt them down and re-cast them into new custom-made investment cast rings for customers. Usually they would add enough new gold to get the alloy up to 18kt or so.
But a belt buckle is not a ring, so I would probably go with more silver and less gold there due to the wear it's going to see, so 14kt sounds about perfect to me.
18kt is considered the purest gold alloy for wearing, 24kt is really display case material only. If this guy was actually in the gold mining business, he presumably had access to higher content gold if he wanted. Just the fact that it's 14kt to me means it was intended to be worn.
I have friends in the Gold mining business and also know two custom Goldsmiths and one of their employees very well. They routinely collect old rings, necklaces, etc and melt them down and re-cast them into new custom-made investment cast rings for customers. Usually they would add enough new gold to get the alloy up to 18kt or so.
But a belt buckle is not a ring, so I would probably go with more silver and less gold there due to the wear it's going to see, so 14kt sounds about perfect to me.
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