Top Jewellery Metals

Like any other kind of artisans, jewellers too, enjoy working with a large variety of materials. Each precious metal presents the jeweller with a set of unique challenges. Hence, it takes a great deal of knowledge on the nature of these metals to be able to craft them into beautiful and durable pieces. 

As a shopper for jewellery, you too can benefit from knowing the essential facts about the top jewellery metals - platinum and gold. Here, you will find all the information you need to know when shopping for precious metals. Learn how to select the right quality for your money, as well as how to take proper care of your precious belongings.

Platinum

This offers a silvery-white lustre and is very enviable in jewellery and often referred to as the most beautiful of all meals. It's also four times stronger than gold and renowned for its hard wearing qualities. 

Platinum purity

Due to its durability, style and performance, platinum is regarded as highly prized and can be mixed with other metals to make it more malleable. 

The most commonly used metals added are rhodium, iridium, copper, titanium, and palladium. There are stringent measures in place for all platinum offered by jewellery sellers, and only metals marked with 950 or 900 purity are considered high-grade platinum. Alloys that contain a lower portion are often used to make jewellery but on the understanding that they don't last as long as the highest quality of platinum.

Durability

One of the main trademarks of platinum is its incredible durability. Since it is significantly denser than either gold or silver, it makes for a great option for crafting pieces exposed to regular wear, such as wedding bands. Such jewellery, when made of platinum, has a famously long-lasting beauty. 

At Appleby Jewellers we craft all jewellery from the highest and finest quality of purest platinum alloys. 

Gold

From the beginning of time, humans have been physically and emotionally drawn to gold. Societies and economies have always placed significance on gold, therefore escalating its worth. Gold doesn't corrode, and as you may be aware, gold is the softest and most pliable of all metals. Gold shines, and it continues to be highly adored, and in its purest form is bright yellow in colour. However, it is often mixed with other metals such as silver and copper to make it more durable to allow wear and tear and enhancing the colour, such as rose and white gold.

Gold colours

Due to its softness, gold is rarely used in its purest form when creating a piece of jewellery. Blended with other metals, it will then offer more robustness, and at Appleby Jewellers, we offer an assortment of fine contrasting colours in our exciting jewellery range.

This colour gold has proved timeless and is still very popular today in creating the majority of engagement and wedding rings, offering many styles from which to choose. Did you know that an 18-carat yellow gold ring will be richer and more colourful than one of 10 carats? 

This has become a very popular choice for all types of wedding and engagement rings, particularly as the shine comes from the added metals, which include zinc, copper, manganese and palladium. The highest quality of white gold is normally 18 carat which is usually mixed with palladium and yellow gold. 

This has become very popular in recent years, and the colour is obtained from adding copper and silver, and the more copper that's added then, the darker the rose colour. Often known as 'crown gold', the most precious rose gold has a 22-carat weight. The more common one is 18 carats which contain 25% copper and 75% gold and is more affordable.