December 30, 2022

Plated, filled, vermeil and solid gold: the difference

Gold jewelry gets sold under four words that sound related and mean quite different things. Three of the four describe gold over another metal. What separates them is how much gold, how it was attached, and above all what sits underneath it.

Gold plated

Plated describes a layer of gold over another metal. The gold content is usually under one percent and the layer is thin, which is what keeps the price low and why most fashion jewelry is made this way.

What matters most is what sits underneath. Plating is usually done over brass, and once the gold wears through, you are wearing brass. Brass reacts with skin, which is where the green mark comes from, and it is why cheap plated jewelry stops looking like gold after a few months.

Gold filled

Gold filled is also gold over a base metal, usually brass, but it is bonded with heat and pressure rather than dipped, and the layer is far thicker. The gold content is around five percent. That thickness does real work: a gold filled piece holds its surface for years rather than months.

Gold vermeil

Vermeil is the only one of the four with a legal standard behind it. The gold has to be at least 10K, the layer at least 2.5 microns, and, the part that matters most, the metal underneath has to be solid sterling silver rather than brass.

That last requirement is the whole point. Vermeil is a kind of plating, but there is no base metal waiting underneath it. Ours is 14K recycled gold at 2.5 microns over recycled 925 sterling silver, so if the gold ever wears thin, what is under it is silver. A jeweler can replate it, and nothing beneath it is going to mark your skin.

Solid gold

Solid gold is gold the whole way through. Pure 24K gold is soft enough to bend out of shape, so alloys are added for strength, and that alloyed metal is what solid gold means in practice. Ours is recycled 14K. There is no surface layer, so there is nothing to replate and nothing to look after beyond wiping it down. It costs more for the plain reason that there is more gold in it.

What we make

Two of the four: gold vermeil and solid recycled gold, both in small batches. They do different jobs. Vermeil is for the pieces you change with your mood. Solid gold is for the one you never take off.