The Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design Blog

2nd April 2009 10:12

How to choose which white metal to use for your engagement ring

When you are choosing your engagement ring all of the information out there on the different metals that you can choose can be quite confusing. There is a lot to consider - the colour that you want the ring to be, the durability, the price and of course the ethical and environmental impact that your choice of this metal may have.

If you like the idea of having a ring made from white precious metal, then there are you can choose silver, white gold, palladium or platinum.

Silver

We don't often recommend a silver engagement ring as the ideal choice for because it is quite soft relative to the other options, so the metal will dent and scratch even more readily than for the other white precious metals. If you plan to choose a very valuable stone or to wear your ring a lot, this may not be the ideal option because the setting edge can wear relatively easily leaving your stone vulnerable to loss. However, it is a relatively low cost option. Sometimes our customers choose this metal when they would like a ring for a few years that they plan to ultimately replace with a more valuable metal, or if they have religious beliefs which mean that silver is the right option for them.

Learn More about silver engagement rings

Here is a picture of a silver engagement ring:-

White Gold

White gold is an alloy of gold with other whiter metals which whiten the natural colour of the gold. Pure gold (24ct) is a very rich orangey-yellow colour and this is called 24ct gold because it is 24 parts out of 24 gold (ie 100% gold). This is very soft though - such that you can even reshape a bangle made of this very easily with your hands. So it is not really suitable for jewellery - especially for rings which get quite a lot of every day wear. So we alloy this with other metals to change its properties and make it into 18ct and 9ct gold (see below).

A number of elements are added to gold to improve it. Silver and copper are added and together they harden the gold. Silver whitens the alloy and more copper reddens it. Zinc is added to lower the melting point of the alloy and this also whitens the gold. Palladium is used mainly as a whitener. Many other elements are added too.

This is what pure gold looks like

pure gold

Gold is quite pricey at the moment - this is because in uncertain economic times, people invest in gold as it is seen as a safe place to put your money because it rarely crashes in value. Last year 18ct white gold was a lot cheaper than platinum but right now (March 2009) it is creeping up and was even more expensive than platinum at one point recently. Now it is a bit less expensive than platinum but not by a long way.

Gold is more durable than silver but not as durable as platinum and palladium.

18ct white gold engagement rings

18ct white gold is 18/24 parts gold (ie 75 % gold). 18ct white gold is alloyed with various other metals including palladium which make it whiter and also a bit more durable than pure gold. Here is a picture of an 18ct white gold engagement ring:-

We can offer pre certificated fair trade 18ct white gold now which is very exciting so this is a great ethical choice. The other alloys within our pre-certificated fair trade gold are not fairly traded yet (we are working on it!) and neither yet is the solder that we use but the majority of the metal within it (ie the gold) is now fairly traded. Here is a picture of a ring that we recently made from this gold:-

9ct white gold engagement rings.

9ct gold is 9/24 parts gold (ie 37.5% gold). 9ct white gold is alloyed with various other white metals including silver and is a creamy white colour compared with 18ct white gold. Here is a picture of a 9ct white gold engagement ring:-

White gold is more durable than silver, but not quite as durable as palladium or platinum. There is little difference between the durabilities of 9ct and 18ct white gold.

9ct white gold is not available as a pre-certificated fair-trade metal because the composite rules of fair trade items mean that 9ct gold does not contain enough metal to ever be considered as a fair trade option whilst the other metals in the alloy are not fairly traded.

Rhodium plating on your white gold engagement ring

When you choose a white gold engagement ring in the high street, it is always a very bright white colour. This is not actually the colour of the white gold, but the colour of another metal, rhodium, which has been plated onto the surface of your jewellery. This is a standard procedure when mass producing engagement rings, although we like to give you the option of choosing this or not as is your preference. This is what a rhodium plated engagement ring looks like:-.

In every day wear, rhodium will eventually wear off the surface of your ring leaving the slightly warmer colour of the 18 or 9ct gold (as pictured separately above). This warmer colour is slightly yellower than the rhodium. Some people think that this means that their gold is 'tarnishing' which is not true because gold is very unreactive – it is just wear on the surface which is wearing the very thin layer of rhodium off the surface of the ring. This can then be left to wear off, or reapplied later on. Many jewellers office a rhodium plating service - be warned though, we do not all put the same thickness of rhodium onto the surface of the rings - some jewellers scrimp on this and so you will notice it wears off more quickly for the same price. At the moment it generally costs about £20 - £40 to have a layer of rhodium put onto the surface of your ring (we charge £25 + VAT and put on a nice thick layer).

Rhodium plating solution is rather harmful to the environment and so it is a more environmentally friendly option not to rhodium plate the white gold.

Learn more about white gold engagement rings

PLATINUM

Platinum is often seen as the finest choice for a white metal engagement ring. It is quite a dense metal and so feels nice and heavy on the hand.

Platinum is used in various forms - we use the most pure platinum we can here which is platinum 950 (ie 95%).

Platinum is naturally very white without any need for rhodium - it is a bright steely white. Relative to other metals, it is very strong even in fine detail so it is a particularly good choice when customers would like fine claws or less metal around the stone of their engagement ring. It is more durable than silver or white gold (but all of the precious metals are fairly soft (in comparison with a metal like, steel for example) so all of the metals will scratch and form a surface patina over time). It is currently the most costly of the precious metals that we use. Here is a picture of a platinum engagement ring:-

Platinum is a beautiful metal, but quite energy intensive to get out of the ground, and very rare. There's an often-quoted statistic that says that if all the platinum ever mined was melted down and put into an Olympic-sized swimming pool, it wouldn’t cover your ankles. Its one saving grace though is that the jewellery industry isn't the main reason for platinum mining. There are two places in which platinum is irreplaceable by any other metal, and they are in the medical industry for the production of drugs, and in catalytic converters, which make the world a cleaner place than it would be without the mining of platinum. We piggyback on the back of that with the platinum we use for jewellery.

Learn more about platinum engagement rings

Palladium

This metal is similar to platinum in appearance though much less expensive. It is a platinum group metal with the lowest melting point of the group. It is much less dense than platinum though, so it feels lighter on the hand but this lightness also keeps the cost down. If you are looking for a chunky ring in platinum it will feel quite solid on the hand - if it was in palladium it would feel less dense. At the moment, the Assay Office doesn't hallmark palladium - only gold, silver and platinum - but apparently they have started a discussion about adding it to the list on the act. We're expecting them to come to a decision early this year. In the mean time the palladium we're using is stamped by our suppliers. It is proving very popular at the moment because it is very white but not very costly. Here is a picture of a palladium engagement ring:-

We predict that the price of palladium might go up quite a bit within a few years of it being added to the hallmarking act (this is what happened with platinum) so we think it is a very good time to buy it.

Environmentally palladium comes out of the ground anyway as a by-product when mining platinum. So it is sort of environmentally 'free' as platinum is mined for other reasons anyway. So this makes it a sound choice in this respect.

Combinations of white metals

We can also combine the white metals together fairly effectively to pick up on the relevant properties for you and for the particular part of the ring - but remember that a piece can only be hallmarked as the lower value metal. Mixed metal hallmarks are available from the assay office when combining, say, yellow gold and platinum but not for combinations of white metal where this mixture can be confusing. Here is an example of an engagement ring that combines white gold with silver:-