As a fine jewelry company, we work solely with precious metals: gold, sterling silver, and platinum, but the fine jewelry label is not the only reason we choose not to work with other metals.
Honorable mention first - Sterling Silver: You may be wondering why this metal is on this list when we do carry some items in sterling silver. Our use of silver depends solely on the design. Silver is a very soft metal, so soft in fact that thin silver rings can become misshapen with extended wear. We want your jewelry to last, so we don't use silver for really thin rings, or for delicate gemstone settings, since thin prongs can bend easily and you can lose or chip a gem.
Now on to the metals we won't work with at all.
Stainless Steel: While a durable metal, it's incredibly tough to work with for more intricate designs and to create secure settings for gemstones. Its inflexibility also makes it very difficult to resize your jewelry. Even though steel is highly recyclable, the sheer abundance of the metal means that small items like jewelry have zero resale value. A dense metal, steel jewelry isn't optimal of long-term daily wear if you're sensitive to the weight of your jewelry.
Tungsten: We get requests for tungsten quite a lot. Tungsten is a brittle and dense metal that becomes more durable when it's mixed to become a carbide. Because of it's brittlness, even as a carbide, tungsten can shatter when struck with force. Similar to steel, tungsten's inflexibility leads to design limitations and makes it impossible to resize.
Titanium: Another strong yet inflexible metal that doesn't allow for more detailed or intricate designs. While titanium is a lighter-weight metal than steel, it's still heavier than gold or platinum and can be uncomfortable to wear daily, especially for larger pieces. Resizing, replating, polishing, and engraving are all extremely difficult with this metal so longevity can be an issue.
Brass: A low-quality base metal that can cause skin irritation and tarnishes easily. This type of jewelry not only has no investment value but also needs a lot of cleaning and maintenance to look good.
Gold or Silver Plated: The tiniest amount of precious metal over a base metal. Low quality, low resale value, and the plating will come off easily.
Gold Filled: This type of jewelry consists of a base metal with a thick gold plating, one that is at least 5% of the jewelry's total weight; however, gold-filled items still retain a low resale value. Even with good maintenance and cleaning, the plating will eventually wear off, but it's more durable than simple gold plating.
Gold Vermeil: Surprisingly, Gold Vermeil is a precious metal. Thinner plating than gold-filled but thicker than common gold plating, gold vermeil requires at least 2.5 microns of gold over sterling silver. The combination of the two precious metals means that the resale value is a little better. However, the gold plating still won't last forever, and it will eventually need replating.
Rolled Gold: Sometimes called Gold Overlay or Rolled Gold Plate, this type of jewelry is made from a thin sheet of gold literally rolled over a base metal like brass or copper and applied with heat and pressure. The gold amount is thinner than gold-filled but thicker than standard plating. Like the other types of gold plating, it's not very durable, doesn't have a good resale value, and will need replating sooner rather than later.
