I think we should start with what is 'ct'? it is short for carat I am sure you have seen this term used for diamonds but it is also used to describe the purity of gold. Some countries like the USA use word Karat and letter K, like 9K. This term shows how much gold is present in the metal used for jewellery. The pure gold is 24ct so 9ct means that there are 9 parts of gold and 15 parts of other metals present in the allow. I know it is confusing but it gets very simple when you think of it as a gin & tonic. So when you make gin & tonic you put 3 parts of gin and 6 parts of tonic, it is the same with gold, the only difference is that we call it not gin and tonic but 3 parts gin.
Now we have done the technical part, but let's see what is 9ct gold and why it is so common in the UK. We can see a lot of 9ct gold rings, earrings, bracelets and chains sold in London and other cities of the UK but you hardly see any 9ct rings or bracelets sold abroad. The reason is that 9ct gold is traditionally used in the UK and it comes from the 19th century. In the beginning, it was used predominantly for watch cases. The main reason for this is that 9ct gold is much harder and stronger than 18ct gold and can resist scratching and wear more than 18ct gold. With the industrialization, late 19th century and early 20th century the population of upper-middle-class people was rising. These people could afford jewellery and wanted to have nice rings, chains and pendants, however, 18ct gold was still too expensive. So during the arts and crafts movement, a lot of jewellers started using 9ct gold to make chains, bracelets and rings to cover the demand.
At some point, there was more jewellery made of 9ct gold than 18ct gold or 14ct gold. And it is the same now, so 9ct gold jewelery is still very popular. For example, according to the Birmingham assay office latest figures, they hallmarked 3 times more 9ct gold jewellery than 18ct gold jewellery.
To summarize we can say that:
9ct gold is traditionally used in the UK
It resists wear and scratches more than 18ct gold, also it is harder, so diamonds and other gemstones are safe when they are set in 9ct gold. The beautiful tiger's eye and 9ct gold ring from our stock is from 1959.
9ct gold is cool and It looks great!!!