The alloy of copper does not decrease the value of the gold.

14K gold (585) is 14K. You could mix it with iron slag...and 585 parts of the melted metal are still pure gold.

No manufacturers sell 24K product, so comparing an alloy used in a finished piece to pure gold doesn't make much sense. There are some areas of the world where women wear gold as a way to store/hide wealth on their bodies. In that case, you wouldn't care what color it is...just make it big, heavy, and as close to 24K as possible without breaking.

Most manufacturers do not even use pure gold to manufacture. They buy casting shot at the required specification (10K, 14K, 18K, 20K) and add in clippings from prior castings (of the same base metal). This saves manufacturing time, quality-control cycles, as well as in-house lab services to monitor batches of metal for content, color, melting point, contamination, etc. Casting moderate batches of jewelry (50-100 pieces several times a day) can be handled end-to-end by one person and the right equipment.

To a recycler, white gold may have more value due to recovery of silver and platinum family metals. But, you need to melt a lot of scrap gold to get any return on those "bonus" metals. They wouldn't factor into a value calculation.

Rose gold or pink gold does not necessarily sell at a premium. You can find examples of multi-color gold pieces or sets such as a ring with white shank + rose head, or a set of three pave rings with white/yelo/rose bands. In those cases, the cost of the gold is less significant than the cost of the stones.

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