What’s the difference?
written by: Justice Lawrence
Buying gold jewelry can be very expensive. On top of that, having to know the differences between the different karats can be tricky. If knowing the differences between the different karats wasn’t tricky enough, you have to know the differences between gold plated, gold vermeil, and gold- filled?! While these are sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably, they are all different. One thing to note about these three options is that none of them are solid gold. To help one aspect of your gold shopping today, I’m going to help you understand the differences between gold plated, gold vermeil, and gold-filled.
Gold plated is usually the most common term you may be use to hearing out of the three. As defined by Wikipedia, gold plating is a method of depositing a thin layer of gold onto the surface of another metal, most often copper or silver, by chemical electroplating. Both gold vermeil and gold-filled can be thought of as forms of gold plating, the difference being their thickness of the plating. Typically, when jewelry states that it’s just gold plated, this mean the jewelry contains a thin layer of gold that can easily fade. Unlike gold vermeil or gold-filled, gold plated jewelry can easily and instantly be rubbed off by harsh chemicals, water, and products that contain a lot of alcohol. Out of the three, gold plated jewelry is usually the least expensive, but of coarse there are other factors that play a role in the price of jewelry, like the brand. Forever21 is a good example of a place that sales nice gold plated jewelry that is not expensive.
Gold vermeil jewelry is a step up from just being gold plated. When something is advertised as gold vermeil that means that the base metal is more than likely silver and covered with 2.5 micrometers of at least 10 karat gold. 2.5 micrometers is about 100 times thicker than jewelry advertised as gold plated. Therefore, it will typically last longer and be worth more. Check out The M Jewelers for some nice gold vermeil jewelry.
The one that contains the most gold and is my favorite out of the three is gold-filled jewelry. Gold-filled jewelry contains a thick coat of 14 karat (or higher) of gold that’s five percent of the total weight. The layer of gold is so thick that I liked to think of it as shell of gold in-casing the base metal which is typically brass. The best thing about gold-filled jewelry is that it can be treated like solid gold jewelry and it cost about a fraction of the price. Also, gold-filled jewelry is hypoallergenic which is good for people who typically breakout or have a bad allergic reaction to brass, nickle, copper etc. My favorite place to shop for gold-filled jewelry is Etsy, they have a lot of sellers that make nice affordable gold-filled pieces.
Jewelry Talk 