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If you are considering selling gold items that you own to a gold buyer for cash, then you likely want to get an idea of the current value your gold items are worth before you sell them. While you can look up the current spot price of gold, which tends to fluctuate over time, on the internet, you may wonder if certain aspects of your gold items also affect their value, such as the color of the gold and the gold karat numbers. 

Read on to learn more about gold colors and karat numbers and how they affect gold value. 

Rose Gold, White Gold, and Yellow Gold: Do Their Values Differ? 

Many people looking to sell gold for cash suspect that rose gold, white gold, and yellow gold have different values due to their unique colors. The truth is that while these gold types do differ in color and even metal composition, the color of a gold item does not typically affect its value at all. 

Since pure gold is not strong enough to use alone when creating jewelry and other gold items, other metals must be mixed with it before molding or forming into any desired shape.

Typically, these additional metals include silver, copper, and zinc. To create rose gold instead of yellow gold, the amount of silver and zinc added to the gold is reduced and the copper content of the alloy is increased to give rose gold its rosy-copper hue. 

On the other hand, white gold is typically created by adding more zinc to pure gold and very little to no copper. Nickel is also often added to white gold to lighten its color even further. 

However, even though these gold types have varying metal compositions, their value is determined by the amount of pure gold the metal contains, which is expressed in karats. So, for example, a troy ounce of 14-karat white gold is just as valuable as a troy ounce of 14-karat rose gold. 

Gold Karats: How These Numbers Affect Gold Value

To determine the value of your gold, you should pay close attention to the gold karat number instead of the gold color. Gold karat numbers can range from 0 to 24, with 24-karat gold being the most valuable type of gold you can buy.

Twenty-four-karat gold alloys contain 99.9 percent pure gold. Eighteen-karat gold, on the other hand, is less valuable than 24-karat gold, because it contains just 75 percent pure gold, while the remaining 25 percent of the alloy is made up of an array of other metals. In addition, while 10-karat gold may look similar to 24-karat gold, it contains just 41.7 percent gold. 

If you plan to sell gold for cash, remember that gold items with higher karat numbers are more valuable than those with lower karat numbers and gold color does not affect its value.