whats this mean?

[lance]

tjt10kp ???

[im2shakey]

Looks like a personal tag that has a crazy meaning?

[Nickelmeister]

If it's on a piece of jewellery, it's probably "TJT" the maker's initials and 10 karat plumb.

[lance]

Interesting...i bought 3 rings and they all had it on it...i was afraid of them being plated but i broke the band on one of them and it seems to be gold colored all the way through....so im assuming its not plated now.

[Sheba]

you probably have 10 kt gold...worth some money. Take it to someone (LCS or jewler) that you trust to find out if it is 'gold filled'. If that is the case (gold filled) it will not be worth anything in terms of gold value. Hope you got a good deal and its 10 kt gold!!

[wagsthadog]

Hi there-

The "P" on the end scares me; I think it means plated...and pretty much worthless from a gold standpoint. Test it and know!

wags

[lance]

Yah scares me also! Ill take it somewhere tommarow

[TheJonasCollegeFund]

Hi there-

The "P" on the end scares me; I think it means plated...and pretty much worthless from a gold standpoint. Test it and know!

wags

I used to feel the same....older rings will have that "P" meaning "PLUMB". Should be the real deal. I did some research and was rewarded instead of punishing myself with knowledge.

[Nickelmeister]

Hi there-

The "P" on the end scares me; I think it means plated...and pretty much worthless from a gold standpoint. Test it and know!

wags

I used to feel the same....older rings will have that "P" meaning "PLUMB". Should be the real deal. I did some research and was rewarded instead of punishing myself with knowledge.

That's what *I* said!

[lance]

What are some of the stamps i should stay away from? In terms of gold plater/gold filled.etc

[Robarons]

10kp is plumb has been said many times
10k gp I think means Gold plate
10k (or more commonly 18k) HGE means Heavy Gold Electro-plate
10k (or more commonly 12k) GF means Gold filled, same as 1/20 1/20 or 10/20, 14/20 when karat is the numerator
10k RGP is rolled gold plate

[Treetop]

What is gold filled? I tried looking it up when a member here was buying it, but i got links to all kinds of other stuff, that i dont believe was what was talked about.

[fasteddy]

What is gold filled?

Hey Treetop it is a winner compared to the other markings...its actual layered gold vs electro plated, the next winner but not so much is the rolled gold plate. Maybe if Nickelmeister wasn't offended to much he will chime in, he is in the biz.

I little more info...."plumb" is used on jewelry to insure to the end user that it is what it is marked....i.e. 14kp is 14 karat...and not 13 1/2 karat

then I believe **kpc means the karat number is from a melted gold coin. Mark help me out here am I correct?

[Robarons]

Never heard of of the NPC marking- if it was used it would have been long ago when gold coins were actually used. Gold coins dont tend to fall into karats that well- if you melted us gold I think its like 21.58k pure or close. European gold I think may fall into 22k gold.

Gold filled is an actual sheet of gold over a base metal. Its the thickest plate you can get. Its mechanically applied as well. By law 1/20th of the total weight must be gold to be called gold filled. So if you had a gold filled ring that weighed 20 grams of 12k, then it would have 1 gram of solid 12k. But wear and costs to refine this gold skew the the gold scrap value of that item.

Gold filled varies from .25-.50 cents a gram in scrap value.

The best thing to look for scrap gold is a karat mark by itself with nothing following it. Almost almost means its solid. Sometimes there are manufacturers marks that do not mean anything as well.