"Your Mark Your Calendar® Keychains are 18 gauge sterling silver. What does that mean??"

Posted by Sandy on Jun 27th 2014

Four different diameter discs, all the same thickness: 20 gauge.

Once in awhile, customers ask about what the "gauge" measurement in our listings means, so we thought we provide a little explanation.

For example, this description identifying the gauge of sterling silver sheet used is included in our Mark Your Calendar® Keychain listing:

This nice and thick 18 gauge, approximately 1" sterling silver rectangle can be hand stamped with ANY month from ANY year (past, present or future), and then one day will be highlighted with an oval or a heart AROUND the date.

So what does it mean?

The gauge of metal is simply a measurement of its thickness, but because it's not a measurement we typically use in our day-to-day lives, it has little meaning by itself. Plus there are various measurement systems and standards to make it even more confusing!

In the United States (and jewelry making world), sheet metal is measured using the Brown and Sharpe Gauge.

Oddly enough, the larger the gauge, the thinner the metal. So our Mark Your Calendar Keychains are made from a nice and thick 18 gauge sterling silver, while our necklaces (no stamping on the back) are made from a thinner 22 gauge sterling silver.

You can see from the chart below that the difference between those two gauges is only .015 of an inch!

The common gauges of sheet metal we use are listed below along with their respective thicknesses in inches and millimeters: