4th Birthday Party!
Updated: Feb 15, 2022
A BIG thank you from Team AMJ!
We say goodbye for now to Gallery Manager Lucy Thompson (right), who leaves us for a year to start her new life as a mum. We wish her all the best and can't wait to welcome her back!
ANNE MORGAN JEWELLERY'S FOURTH BIRTHDAY!
Friday 18th October 2019, 6-9PM
Join us on Friday 18th October from 6-9pm at our Glebe Street gallery to celebrate 4 years of Anne Morgan Jewellery.
This year we share our birthday with the Periodic Table of Elements, so we’re celebrating those that go into the process of making your jewellery by hand.
Come along and see our beautiful window display that honours 150 years of the Periodic Table, and treat yourself to a piece of handmade jewellery, created using so many of the elements featured.
As a special thank you for all your continued support and custom, we are offering 10% off all jewellery purchased on the night, and 20% off jewellery from Anne's collections (excluding orders and commissions).
Plus, we’ll be on hand to fill your glass with Prosecco. Alcohol is a compound worth celebrating too, right?!
And Now for the Science...
GOLD
In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal.
Because of the softness of pure (24ct) gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewellery, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, colour and other properties. Alloys with lower carat rating, typically 22ct (hallmarked at 916 which is 91.6% fine gold content), 18ct (750 or 75%), 14ct (585 or 58.5%) or 9ct (375 or 37.5%), contain higher percentages of copper or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy.
18ct Rose gold is usually made up of 75% gold and 25% copper giving it a lovely red colour.
18ct Yellow gold is 75% gold, 12.5% copper, 12.5% silver.
And 18ct White gold is 75% gold. The alloys vary but mostly it's alloyed with nickel, palladium, platinum, and manganese.
White gold usually is not white. The gold alloy is normally grey in colour and is usually rhodium plated to give a white finish. The downside of this is that it’ll wear off, and you will need to re-plate your jewellery from time to time. Here at Anne Morgan Jewellery we love using the grey metal in its natural form, and often contrast it with yellow or rose gold making more of a statement.
Pure metallic (elemental) gold is non-toxic and non-irritating when ingested (we wouldn’t suggest eating your family heirlooms). Melting them down to a different carat or colour is far more useful unless you really wanted to use it in the form of gold leaf for food decorating. Interestingly although gold is a relatively non-potent allergen, it was voted the Allergen of the Year in 2001 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society. Gold contact allergies affect mostly women.
SILVER
Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin argentum, derived from the Proto-Indo-European h₂erǵ: "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47.
A soft, white, lustrous metal, it’s the most conductive and reflective of any metal. Silver is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver, and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver hallmark is 925.
Because of its reflective nature, malleability and affordability, it makes the perfect metal to create jewellery with. It is one of the most favoured metals of many jewellers. The work we show probably makes up 90% of the jewellery we sell.
PLATINUM
Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly un-reactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platino, meaning ‘little silver’.
Platinum is a member of the platinum group of elements, and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It is one of the rarer elements in Earth's crust. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some native deposits, mostly in South Africa, which accounts for 80% of the world’s production.
Because of its scarcity in Earth's crust, only a few hundred tons are produced annually, and given its important uses, it is highly valuable and is a major precious metal.
Platinum is considered a precious metal, although its use is not as common as the use of gold or silver. The frame of the Crown of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, manufactured for her coronation as Consort of King George VI, is made of platinum. It was the first British crown to be made of this particular metal.
PALLADIUM
Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd, and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired by her when she slew Pallas.
Palladium, platinum, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium form a group of elements referred to as the platinum group metals (PGMs). These have similar chemical properties, but palladium has the lowest melting point and is the least dense of them.
More than half the supply of palladium and platinum is used in catalytic converters, which convert as much as 90% of the harmful gases in automobile exhaust into less noxious substances.
Palladium is also used in electronics, dentistry, medicine, hydrogen purification, chemical applications, groundwater treatment, and jewellery. A few years ago Palladium was considered the poor man’s Platinum as it was relatively inexpensive in comparison. Now the demand for palladium as a catalyst has increased the price of palladium to about 50% higher than that of platinum, in January 2019.
Now you’re an expert on the metals used in our jewellery, it may be easier to choose the right metal for you.
You can now identify the jewellery you have and know the jewellery you want.
Every Day's a School day!
Today's science lesson comes to you with thanks to Stanwell School Chemistry department, who loaned us the science props in our beautiful window display.
