Our Jewelry

JOOLZ features an exciting collection of handcrafted earrings, rings, bracelets, pins, pendants and necklaces. We plan to offer extraordinary pieces from our inventory via our website at a future date. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our shop in Canandaigua.

There’s so much to learn about jewelry – what it’s made of, how it’s made, how to care for it. Here’s some information that will help you understand the “language” of jewelry.


Cases constructed by Scott Auberger, Churchville, NY

FACTS ABOUT JEWELRY

Carat
A carat is a unit of weight for gemstones and is one-fifth of a gram. It is also used to describe the purity of gold. In the United States, when the word is used to indicate gold content rather than gemstone weight, it is spelled with a K to indicate the amount of pure gold present in the metal.

Gold
24K is 100% gold; 18K is 75% gold; 14K is 58.3% gold and 10K is 41.7% gold.

Gold is one of the world’s most precious metals. Pure gold is very soft, so it is usually mixed with other metals to make it stronger and to prevent it from bending too easily. When two or more metals are mixed together, we call the resulting product an alloy. Metals that are used with gold to create alloys include copper, zinc, silver, nickel, platinum and palladium. Depending on which alloys are created, a variety of colors can be produced.

joolz by Ayesha Mayadas

Gold Filled Wire
14K gold-filled wire is made by forming a tube of solid 14K gold that is “filled” with a base metal. The gold is bonded to the base metal with heat and pressure. The base metal is also gold in color and is made up of almost the same mixture of metals (usually a brass alloy) used to bring 24K gold down to 14K, 10K, etc. The exterior of the product is solid 14K gold and everything you can see or touch is a solid layer of 14K gold. It will never tarnish, chip or wear off. The gold layer on gold-filled wire is approximately 100 times thicker than gold-plate, and is bonded with heat and pressure. 14K gold filled wire is also known as rolled gold. There is a Federal law requiring that any gold filled wire must be 1/20 gold by weight. Gold filled wire is used by many artists to “wrap” stones in the fabrication of pendants, earrings, etc.

joolz by Kerry Bogert

Silver
Silver is another precious metal that has been used for ornamental purposes throughout history. Fresh silver has a bright, metallic white color, but tarnishes (turns yellow to black) when exposed to air. Tarnishing is caused by a chemical reaction of the silver to sulfur compounds present in the atmosphere. Tarnished silver can be restored to its original color with one of the many tarnish-removing chemicals. Silver is very malleable and easy to work with. It bends easily, and is alloyed with other metals to increase its toughness and durability.