I doubt that he could conclude the karatness of the gold with any amount of
certainty. Even if he did an acid test, at best 11 Karat would be a
guestimate. Further, as with 9, 10, 14, 18 karat etc, your ring could be
sized with 14kt white gold stock (which is a repair shop standard) and after
polishing, it's doubtfull that you would see the difference. If you do,
the whole ring could be rhodium plated (another standard procedure) for
about $10-$15. Take your ring to another jeweler. If you're in Baltimore,
Maryland, A&M Jewelers is a good one. (Shameless plug)

-Stanley

"AuroraeB" wrote in message
...
What does it mean when a jeweler refers to diamonds in a ring as being
"salty"?
Does this mean it is not a real diamond? A poor quality diamond?

I had a ring looked at by a jeweler, to see if it could be sized and if it
was
even worth putting the effort into sizing it. It's an old ring purchased
from
an antique vendor. I didn't pay a lot for it at all, the vendor didn't
specialize in jewelry. They told me that the ring was white gold but they
didn't know if the stones were real diamonds or not.

I was told by the jeweler not to bother sizing it, as it wasn't worth
much, the
white gold was only testing at 11k and the diamonds were "salty".

This isn't a term I have heard before, and he really didn't elaborate,
just
handed me back the ring and said he couldn't do anything with it, as he
had no
11k gold to use to enlarge the ring. If it were 10, 14, or 18k he would
have
been able to do something with it, but he had never encountered anything
11k
before, and didn't want to touch it.

Where can I go to find out more about this ring and 11k gold and "salty"
diamonds?

Tracy