In jewelry, different metals are used for the elaboration of different pieces. Among the precious metals known are gold, platinum, palladium, rhodium and silver. On the other hand some of the semiprecious metals are copper, tungsten, iron, titanium, zinc and nickel.
It is important to note that it is not common to find a piece of jewelry made of pure metal. Gold jewelry usually has a mixture of gold with other metals and its characteristics are brightness, low allergy potential, high economic value, ductility and limited quantities. If it is polished, it hardly loses its shine and generally does not produce allergies. If it is pure its color is bright yellow.
For pieces with many diamonds, jewelers prefer to use platinum, because their natural white color highlights the brilliance of diamonds. It is a metal stronger than gold, it is quite dense, adding more weight to the piece. Usually, in jewelry, an alloy of 95% pure platinum with 5% other metals will be used.
On the other hand, palladium is rarely used in jewelry, however it is used to obtain the so-called white gold, being able to have an alloy of 75% pure gold with perhaps 16% pure palladium and 9% pure silver. Also, rhodium is used mainly to bathe gold, platinum and silver, giving them a very unique shine, however the rhodium bath is superficial and deteriorates over time. Because they are difficult to sculpt, pieces of pure rhodium are very rare.
Silver is widely used in jewelry, three types of it can be found: 950, which contains 95% pure silver, sterling silver, containing 92.5 pure silver and 7.5 copper and 900 silver, which has 90% pure silver and 10% copper. It is a metal that reacts to the sulfur in the air causing loss of brightness and color change.
As for the base metals, copper is one of the most used since mixed with noble metals gives them hardness, allowing the pieces to maintain their shape. In addition, the mixture with noble metals such as gold produces changes in color, adding pink or red tones.
Tungsten is a very hard metal that is hard to scratch. Jewelry made of this material is susceptible to fractures if it suffers from strong shocks.
Another metal that has a great hardness is titanium, it is similar to tungsten in terms of color, however it is much lighter and does not fracture. Both tungsten and titanium have very affordable prices so it has become a trend to use these materials in men’s wedding rings.
The so-called non-precious metals do not have much room in the jewelry world, except for alloys, since they usually produce some type of allergy and their characteristics are not ideal for jewelry, for example the metal called alpacca is very similar to silver, but is an alloy of nickel, copper and zinc without precious metals.
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