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Carat (mass)
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Main page This article is about the unit of mass used for gemstones and pearls. For the purity scale used for gold, see Fineness § Karat.
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The carat (ct) (not to be confused with the unit of purity of gold alloys, which is also spelled Part of a series on
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carat in UK English but usually spelled karat in US English), is a unit of mass equal to Diamonds
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200 mg (0.2 g; 0.007055 oz) and is used for measuring gemstones and pearls. The current
Donate to Wikipedia definition, sometimes known as the metric carat, was adopted in 1907 at the Fourth
Wikipedia store General Conference on Weights and Measures,[1] and soon afterwards in many countries
around the world.[i] The carat is divisible into one hundred points of two milligrams each.
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Other subdivisions, and slightly different mass values, have been used in the past in
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different locations.
About Wikipedia
Community portal In terms of diamonds, a paragon is a flawless stone of at least 100 carats (20 g).[2]
Recent changes
The ANSI X.12 EDI standard abbreviation for the carat is CD.[3]
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Material
Contents [hide] Material properties · Crystallographic defects ·
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1 Etymology Formation and surfacing
What links here
2 History The 4 Cs
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2.1 Standardization Carat · Clarity · Color · Cut
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Special pages 3 Historical definitions Production
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List of mines · Diamond cutting ·
3.1 UK Board of Trade
Synthetic diamonds · The diamond industry ·
Page information
3.2 Refiners' carats Blood diamond · De Beers
Wikidata item
3.3 Greco-Roman Cultural impact
Cite this page
4 Notes History · Symbolism · Famous diamonds
Print/export 5 References Imitations and enhancements

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Printable version Etymology [ edit ] Millennium Dome raid ·
Schiphol Airport robbery ·
Languages First attested in English in the mid-15th century, the word carat comes from Italian carato, Graff Diamonds robbery ·
which comes from Arabic qīrāt ‫ﻗﯿﺮاط‬,
̣ in turn borrowed from Greek kerátion κεράτιον 'carob Belgium diamond heist
‫اﻟﻌﺮﺑﯿﺔ‬
Deutsch seed',[4][5][6] a diminutive of keras 'horn'.[7] It was a unit of weight,[8][4] Category · Commons

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History [ edit ]
한국어
Italiano Carob seeds have been used throughout history to measure jewelry, because it was believed that there was little variance in their mass
Русский distribution.[9] However, this was a factual inaccuracy, as their mass varies about as much as seeds of other species.[10]
Tiếng Việt
中 In the past, each country had its own carat. It was often used for weighing gold. Beginning in the 1570s, it was used to measure weights
of diamonds.[4]
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Edit links
Standardization [ edit ]

An 'international carat' of 205 milligrams was proposed in 1871 by the Syndical Chamber of Jewellers, etc., in Paris, and accepted in
1877 by the Syndical Chamber of Diamond Merchants in Paris. A metric carat of 200 milligrams – exactly one-fifth of a gram – had often
been suggested, and was finally proposed by the International Committee of Weights and Measures, and accepted at the fourth sexennial
General Conference of the Metric Convention held in Paris in October 1907. It was soon made compulsory by law in France, but uptake
of the new carat was slower in England, where its use was allowed by the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act of 1897.[11]

Historical definitions [ edit ]

UK Board of Trade [ edit ] Carat before 1907[12]

In the United Kingdom the original Board of Trade carat was exactly 31647⁄9691 grains Location mg
(~3.170 grains = ~205 mg);[ii] in 1888, the Board of Trade carat was changed to exactly 317⁄101 Cyprus 187
grains (~3.168 grains = ~205 mg).[iii] Despite its being a non-metric unit, a number of metric
unknown 188.6
countries have used this unit for its limited range of application.
Brazil 192.2
The Board of Trade carat was divisible into four diamond grains,[iv] but measurements were
Egypt 195
typically made in multiples of 1⁄ carat.
64

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 Ambonia 197
Refiners' carats [ edit ]
Florence 197.2
There were also two varieties of refiners' carats once used in the United Kingdom — the pound
International carat 205
carat and the ounce carat.[v] The pound troy was divisible into 24 pound carats of 240 grains troy
Batavia, Borneo, Leipzig
each; the pound carat was divisible into four pound grains of 60 grains troy each; and the pound
grain was divisible into four pound quarters of 15 grains troy each. Likewise, the ounce troy was South Africa (1) 205.304
divisible into 24 ounce carats of 20 grains troy each; the ounce carat was divisible into four ounce London-New York (1) 205.303
grains of 5 grains troy each; and the ounce grain was divisible into four ounce quarters of 11⁄4 Spain 205.393
grains troy each.[13]
London-New York (2) 205.409

Greco-Roman [ edit ] Berlin 205.44

The solidus was also a Roman weight unit. There is literary evidence that the weight of 72 coins of Paris, East India 205.5
the type called solidus was exactly 1 Roman pound, and that the weight of 1 solidus was South Africa (2) 205.649
24 siliquae. The weight of a Roman pound is generally believed to have been 327.45 g or possibly Amsterdam 205.7
up to 5 g less. Therefore, the metric equivalent of 1 siliqua was approximately 189 mg. The
Lisbon 205.75
Greeks had a similar unit of the same value.[14]
Frankfurt (on Main) 205.77
Gold fineness in carats comes from carats and grains of gold in a solidus of coin. The conversion
Vienna 206.13
rates 1 solidus = 24 carats, 1 carat = 4 grains still stand.[15] Woolhouse's Measures, Weights and
Moneys of all Nations[16] gives gold fineness in carats of 4 grains, and silver in pounds[16] of Venice 207
12 troy ounces of 20 pennyweight each. [clarification needed] Madras 207.353
unknown 213
Notes [ edit ]
Bucharest 215
i. ^ The United States adopted the metric carat definition on July 1, 1913, the United Kingdom on 1 April
Livorno 215.99
1914.
ii. ^ The pre-1888 Board of Trade carat, of which there were exactly 15127⁄64 per ounce troy, was
approximately 205.4094 mg (3.169951 gr).
iii. ^ The post-1887 Board of Trade carat, of which there were exactly 1511⁄2; per ounce troy, was approximately 205.3035 mg (3.168317 gr).
iv. ^ Unlike the modern carat, the Board of Trade carat was not used for measuring pearls; those were measured with pearl grains.
v. ^ The refiners’ carats were the offspring of the carat as a measure of fineness for gold.

pieter

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 References [ edit ]

1. ^ Science . American Association for the Advancement of 10. ^ Turnbull, L. A.; Santamaria, L.; Martorell, T.; Rallo, J.; Hector, A.
Science. 1908. p. 144. Retrieved 30 June 2012. (2006). "Seed size variability: From carob to carats" . Biology
2. ^ American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . Letters. 2 (3): 397–400. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0476 .
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2013. PMC 1686184 . PMID 17148413 .

3. ^ "ANSI Units of Measure" (PDF). das.ct.gov. Dept. of Admin. 11. ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from
Services, State of Connecticut. Archived from the original (PDF) a work in the public domain: Leonard J. Spencer (1910). "Notes on
on April 17, 2012. the weight of the 'Cullinan' diamond" . Mineralogical Magazine.

4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. "carat" . Online Etymology Dictionary. Vol. XV no. 71. pp. 318–326.

5. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "κεράτιον" . A Greek- 12. ^ Zhengzhang, Tao (July 1991). "On the origin of the carat as the

English Lexicon – via Perseus.Tufts.edu. unit of weight for gemstones". Chinese Journal of Geochemistry. 10
(3): 288–293. doi:10.1007/BF02843332 . ISSN 1993-0364 .
6. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1888). "carat" . An Etymological Dictionary of
the English Language. London: Henry Frowde. pp. 93–94. 13. ^ Chaffers, William (1883). Hall Marks on Gold and Silver Plate (6th
ed.). London: Bickers & Son.
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "κέρας" . A Greek-English
14. ^ Grierson, Philip (1960). "The Monetary Reforms of 'Abd Al-
Lexicon – via Perseus.Tufts.edu.
Malik" . Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.
8. ^ "carat" . Oxford Dictionaries – via oxforddictionaries.com.
3 (3): 241–264. doi:10.1163/156852060X00098 .
9. ^ Naturski, Sebastian. "Carat Weight" . Your Diamond Teacher.
15. ^ Harper, K. "People, Plagues, and Prices in the Roman World: The
Retrieved 3 March 2017.
Evidence from Egypt" . Cambridge University Press. Cambridge
University. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
16. ^ a b Woolhouse, W.S.B. (1891). Measures, Weights and Moneys of
all Nations.

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