Silver and golden cats

Attention

• The silver and golden genes and the colours of Rare cat color overview are rare colours, colour dilutions, and colour effects, which are more likely to appear in pedigree or purebred cats that have been specifically bred for their colouration.
• All colours can occur as tortoiseshell. In these coats the base colour (black, chocolate, cinnamon) is mixed with red-orange parts, or cream parts for diluted colourations (blue, lilac, fawn).
• Solid white areas can be mixed with all coats. On paws the white areas will result in pink footpads, white areas around the nozzle will turn the nose pink-red. Similar to solid-white cats. See also: Bicolor cats.
• Kittens can have lighter or different colourings and/or faint tabby patterns, because the coat is not fully developed yet.
• Ambient light can influence the appearance of the coat colouration in pictures.
• The colours can present differently in different breeds and in colourpoint markings. Additionally, sunlight can lighten the fur pigmentation over time.

Silver and Golden genes

All cat coat colours can occur in combination with the silver or golden genes, which presents as effects on the pigment colouration at the base/root of each hair rather than a separate colour. Instead of having fully-coloured hairs, silver and golden cats only have the tips of its hairs coloured, while the roots are silver/golden. In silver cats the roots are light silver-white coloured, while in golden cats the roots have a pale honey colour.

• Solid (non-tabby) silver cats are referred to as smoke. There is no golden smoke, because the combination of wide band and non-agouti simply produces a solid cat.
• Due to the silver-gene, there are no warm tones (brown/apricot) found in the ground coat of silver cats. Only a cool white to light-grey ground colour.
• The term cameo is commonly used for red silver and cream silver coloured coats in cats.
• Silver and golden is very rare in non-pedigree (domestic) cats, due to the lack of selective breeding for the silver- and golden-genes.

Silver cats

Black, brown, and blue silvers

Black silver tabbies

Black silver tabbies have black markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background. Their footpads are dark coloured and the hairs between the pads are black/brown coloured.

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Black smokes

Black smoke cats are solid black cats with light silver-grey hair roots. They do not have a clear tabby pattern (for those use black silver tabby cats), but can have faint (“ghost”) tabby markings.

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  A shaved black smoke Persian showing the silver-white roots
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Blue silvers

Blue silver tabbies have (dark) grey-bluish markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background. Blue is the diluted version of black/brown. Blue silver tabbies will have pink/purple footpads and grey hairs between the pads.

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Red, orange, and cream silvers

Red/orange silver tabbies

Red (orange) silver tabbies have red-orange markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background/ground colour.

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Cream silver tabbies

Red (orange) silver tabbies have red-orange markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background.

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Chocolate and lilac silvers

Chocolate silvers

Chocolate silver cats have chocolate markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background.

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  Smoke

Lilac silvers

Lilac silver cats have lilac markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background.

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Cinnamon and fawn silvers

Cinnamon silvers

Cinnamon silver cats have cinnamon markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background.

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Fawn silvers

Fawn silver cats have fawn markings on a white-pale silver-coloured background.

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Golden cats

Golden cats

Cats with a golden coloured coat (apricot banding). Cats with golden coats are genetically different from cats with red or brown coats, as the golden gene is found on the wb locus. The golden gene presents itself in combination with “normal” cat coat colours. This normal pigmentation is only found on the tip of each hair, while the unpigmented section of the hair is white to golden (yellow to reddish).

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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Black golden
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  Blue golden
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  Blue golden

Sunshine cats

The golden colour in Siberian cats is called sunshine. Sunshine tabby cats exhibit a warm tone of tabby, a pink nose lacking the black lining and a large light cream area around the nose. Siberian cats can present both the golden and silver gene in the same cat. Siberian cats showing both silver and golden in their coat are called sunshine silver cats or bi-metallic cats. The sunshine colouration is causes by the CORIN-gene.

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  Cream (l) and sunshine (r)