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Sunday, March 8, 2009

Jewelry White Gold's History

By Les

Pure gold is so soft that it is not practical for jewelry making so it needs to be mixed with other minerals. One of the most popular mixes around is the one that results in white gold.

Yellow gold is combined with other metals to form an alloy. Alloys are longer wearing and can be shaped into designs that will not easily lose their shape. To make a gold alloy, gold is mixed with a variety of metals.

These metals include copper, nickel, silver, zinc, and palladium. The metals nickel, zinc or palladium are used to turn yellow gold into jewelry white gold. These metals bleach the gold to a whitish color. Palladium has the most effect, however it is more expensive than gold - it is also creates a much harder alloy - often too hard to easily work into fine jewelry.

By using a combination of these metals you can control the degree of whiteness and hardness of the jewelry white gold. Rings are a good example as they need to look good whilst maintaining their shape for decades. Alloys that can easily be worked into rings are generally a combination of gold, silver, copper and palladium.

This could be in the proportions of 50% gold, 8% silver, 8% copper and 34% palladium. This will create jewelry white gold that is 12 carat, very hard wearing with a strong platinum look.

Jewelry white gold was created back in the 1920's to satisfy a demand for platinum jewelry. Platinum is far more expensive than gold so it can be too expensive for most people. Jewelry white gold looks and feels like platinum yet it is far less expensive.

Cheaper versions of jewelry white gold are being produced these days and they range in color from dull grey through to a sickly yellow. To give life to this cheap white gold, the finished product is rhodium plated. This turns the sickly looking metal into a highly polished platinum looking product.

After a few years the rhodium plating wears off leaving the true color of the cheap alloy showing. What looked like a classy platinum piece of jewelry will look a tarnished piece of silver.

Platinum and jewelry white gold are actually greyish in color. It is the rhodium plating that gives it a luscious white finish. Good quality alloys of white gold are much more suitable to jewelry making than pure platinum as platinum can be hard to work with. Jewelry white gold on the other hand is flexible enough to work into fine pieces of jewelry.

It's popular - it's less expensive than platinum - yet it provides that distinguished professional look. Jewelry white gold is the choice of most modern on the rise professionals.

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