Gold in Mokume

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

I have recently started doing a bit of work with mokume and I have
been badly bitten by the bug!

However, as James Binnion suggested, the time to create mokume
starts to get pretty high, and people see the result and say, but it
is “just copper”.

Looking through Steve Midgett’s excellent book I noticed that on the
page doing comparisons between metals, he didn’t even include 9ct
gold.

Can someone please tell me why? Is it that much harder to use 9ct
gold, or does he simply think it is an inferior quality?

Does someone have experience with 9ct gold in mokume?

Finally, what about layering different kinds of brass? ie yellow
brass/red brass/yellow brass

Thanks
Cam

2

Hi, Cam-

Here in the USA, we can’t even sell 9k as gold. 10k is as low as it
goes here, if you want to identify it as karat gold, and that may
well be the reason that Steve Midgett didn’t include 9K.

Lee Einer
Dos Manos Jewelry
http://www.dosmanosjewelry.com

3

9kt gold is not considered gold in the US. It can’t even be sold as
gold here, so there would be no reason for him to mention it.

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Spirer Somes Jewelers
1794 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-491-6000
@spirersomes
www.spirersomes.com

4

Morning Cam,

Steven Kretchmer wrote an article about his experiments in Mokume
with 18ct gold alloys. It’s in Metalsmith spring 1983, Vol3 #2 pgs
38-39. There are a series of mokume articles in that issue,
including one about bronzes.

Eileen