On Sun, 12 Feb 2006 04:05:08 GMT, "Peter W.. Rowe,"
wrote:

In order that people would be
able to tell if they were buying actual 14K or the older 13.5K, manufacturers
came up with the P added to the karat stamp to show that the new stuff was a
full 14K gold content. All this only applied to items made in the U.S.,of
course, since most of the rest of the world had never allowed that sloppy
variance in gold content in the first place.

Hmmm, I didn't know that.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com/