With so many terms to describe gold jewelry, it can be confusing to know exactly what you’re buying, the value of your pieces and how to look after them.

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Solid Gold (AKA 'real gold') is the most valuable form of jewelry you can buy.

You'll often see solid gold jewelry denoted as a number followed by 'k' .

This refers to the 'purity' of gold, which is expressed as karats. The purest form of gold you can get is 24k gold which is 100% pure gold. 24k gold is very yellow in color and soft in texture. As it's too soft to practically use in jewelry, pure gold is often mixed (aka ‘alloyed’) with other metals to make it more durable. These gold alloys are what we refer to as 'solid gold' in jewelry.

The higher the proportion of pure gold to other metals, the higher the number of karats the gold is. 

Gold is one of the most valuable resources in the world and and will last a lifetime if cared for properly. It will not wear away like plated jewelry and can be easily melted down and re-used/recycled to create new pieces.

 

Gold Filled is a fraction of the cost of Solid Gold and is made by bonding a layer of gold to a base metal to give it the appearance of solid gold.

The process involves a high amount of heat and pressure and the resultant gold filled piece is much more durable than a gold plated piece. Gold filled jewelry can last 10 or more years with proper care. Gold filled jewelry has a thick layer of gold, which makes it last much longer than gold plated jewelry. It can be worn daily without fading or rubbing off.

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Gold Plated jewelry consists of a very thin layer of gold being electrically charged onto a base metal or sterling silver.

If gold is plated over sterling silver, this is also known as “Vermeil” (pronounced ver-may).

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Although it is a layer of real gold used in plating, it is only about 0.5 microns on average, or up to 5 microns for heavy gold plating that is used.

To give some context, 1 micron = 1 millionth of a meter, and the average human hair is 70 microns thick! So it is only a microscopic level of gold which does not compare in volume to a Solid Gold piece of jewelry.

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Gold Plated jewelry is the cheapest and lowest quality of these three metal types.

It has an average lifespan of less than a year (with minimal exposure to moisture).