BLOG #3   Jewelry’s Metals Explained

BLOG #3
 
Recently, I took out of a drawer a necklace which I had made and occasionally wear. To my surprise, I saw that the gold layer of the toggle fastener had started to wear off. I actually didn’t mind this fact much because it gave the fastener a Vintage look. However, some people would mind, and that gave me the idea of sharing with you some of my knowledge of the differences between gold plated, gold-filled, and other relevant metal terms.

GOLD PLATED

A jewelry item is “gold plated” when it has a layer of gold bonded electromagnetically to a base metal. The base metal, such as brass or steel, is dipped into a bath of an electroplating solution with a piece of solid gold. When electric current is applied, it causes a thin layer of gold to be deposited on the other metal. This method requires a standard of minimum thickness for the gold layer.

GOLD-FILLED

Gold-filled jewelry is also made of base metal–usually, brass or copper—but is covered with gold in a different bonding process than electroplating.

A gold-filled item usually has a mark indicating how much karat Gold it contains. If a piece of jewelry is marked, for example, 1/20 14K GF. It means that 5% of the total weight is 14K. gold. Such an item, with reasonable care, should last like any other 14K. jewelry.

GOLD FINISHED, GOLD WASH, GOLD COLORED

These terms would apply to thinner layers of coating and have no standard of thickness for the gold. There is no way of knowing how long the gold would last—it depends on the humidity in your area and the salt in the sweat of your neck. There, I said it!

VERMEIL

It is pronounced “vermay.” When you are told that a piece of jewelry is Vermeil, it means that the base metal for the jewelry is silver.

Since the price of gold has sky rocketed, I find that it is very hard to get precise information when I buy findings, the small parts used in jewelry making. Some items that used to be gold-plated are now just gold washed or, gold finished but are just as expensive. At times, when I buy them at jewelry shows, I have to trust the vendors and I am frequently not sure that I should.

**in my next BLOG I will cover silver and other metals,

Until then,     Dalia