Letter 1237

Plating rhodium on white gold

Ed. note; This is an interesting but long thread, and only one of many. Before you get too confused, you might want to start with our FAQ on Rhodium Plating and White Gold to get an overall understanding :-)

I think the main point that is rarely recognized in all of this is: My grandmother and mother have white gold rings which have never needed plating. Why is that? It angers me to hear "white gold is made of yellow gold, which is yellow in color....bla bla bla... so deal with it." Again, why do we all have relatives with white gold jewelry that has never yellowed and never been plated? Anyway, yes, the same thing happed to my wife and I. It is just disheartening to find out that you now have to bring in your engagement ring and wedding bands for plating every 6 months.... What? So how are we going to pass my wifes ring on to our daughter? I guess with a maintenance plan for say.... 100+ years.

Brian Chirrick
- Placentia, CA, USA

It is indeed disheartening, Brian, and you are right about how big a problem it is. I've learned a lot in the last few years --

Gold is yellow. There are no isotopes that are white; that is scientific fact.

To make jewelry, jewelers mix gold with other metals because pure 24 karat gold is far too soft to be useable in jewelry. If the other metals they mix it with are chiefly nickel or palladium, the resulting mix will be "whitish". How white depends on which metals they mix in, and in what proportion. A "whiteness scale" is mentioned a few postings above.

Your relatives have rings where the right metal (probably palladium) was mixed in, and in the right proportion, that the ring came out satisfactorily white for them, and it stayed that color over the decades.

Although your relatives' rings are indeed white, they are not the brilliant shiny highly polished, diamond-like, chrome-plated-like look of what you see in jewelry stores today. That is the look of rhodium, not the look of white gold. Whether consumer-driven or jeweler-driven, tastes changed to where people now expect white gold jewelry to be that brilliant rhodium plated color. So it became nearly universal to rhodium plate the jewelry, and you won't see much unplated white gold jewelry; and if you do, you will find it quite "dull" compared to the glittery rhodium plated stuff.

My assumption is that what happened is the jewelry industry started saying to themselves "we're going to rhodium plate it anyway, why spend the extra money for palladium in the mix", so they started accepting white gold of lower and lower "whiteness" as the base, worrying about it less and less. It seems that some jewelry stores in the middle aisles of malls may even be rhodium plating regular yellow gold.

Some people love the glistening rhodium plated look so much that they accept frequent replating as the cost of getting it. I'm not one of them. Like you, I believe heirloom jewelry should not be plated. But I accept that that means it will be "white" but it will not be dazzling because a mix of yellow gold and other metals, no matter how well done, just can never be the brilliant dazzling color of rhodium. Hope it helps.

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

I am in college and my boyfriend just proposed to me and the ring already has the white gold peeling off and it looks horendous and we have our engagement party coming up. can i get it replated and about how much does this cost?

Nancy Balian
student - Wood-Ridge NJ USA

white gold sucks..after all the money ive paid for my rings I am almost sick that it looks so dingy after a few weeks..I have been told so many things- ohhh its having a reaction to your finger! Oh, all metals tarnish..! Blah blah blah..its all a bunch of crap. Then, the other day I went to get the rhodium plating done, and they told me that i could not because it will damage my ring!! Meanwhile, I have been sending it away to get the plating done for three years..

Go for platinum..spend the money..or, just get yellow gold..save the hassle..

Anastasia Beaverhausen
buyer - Omaha, Nebraska, USA

I've been reading some of the comments. White gold does not exist. Gold is yellow, no other color. It's Rhodium plated. You can go to the jewelry store and get it rhodium plated every year, for about $20-$40.
The yellowish of ring is the gold and nothing else.

Nathalie Torres
- Winnipeg, Canada

Not quite true, Natalie. Because this issue is very confusing spread across hundreds of postings, we've summarized it all for easy reading as our FAQ on Rhodium Plating and White Gold.

Ted Mooney, P.E. 
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

Hi Ted,

Ok, I read the FAQ, if I understood right, gold is yellow, to make it white gold they add other metals to make it white....am I correct on this? Now the rhodium plating is a metal just to make the surface of the band brighter/blink blink! LOL

If correct, the ring is just high maintenance. Regardless it's still gold and it isn't worth any less than the yellow gold ring.

Nathalie Torres
- Winnipeg, Canada

Hi, Elaine. The biggest problem, as mentioned in the FAQS, is that the contrast between yellow gold and rhodium is so drastic that your ring becomes unsatisfactory looking very quickly. While I haven't heard of rings becoming brittle because of too frequent replating, I suppose it's possible if you are doing it every couple of months.

The price of rhodium is presently off the charts (literally! see www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_charts/yearly_graphs.cgi). It was $7000 per ounce in January and is $9,000 per ounce now. Although little is needed, I don't think you will be able to afford replating every 2 months forever, not to mention the inconvenience. Please consider letting your yellow gold ring be yellow.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. 
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

WAS WONDERING, COULD I GET YELLOW GOLD AND DIAMOND EARRINGS RHODIUM PLATED? I LOVE THE EARRINGS, BUT HAVE STARTED WEARING WHITE METALS EXCLUSIVELY.

JUDY MCCOLGAN
- OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA USA

Hi, Judy. It's only a matter of how long the rhodium plating will last before wearing off considering the strong contrast. It's not a good idea for a ring, but for earrings that you wear only occasionally, and that don't get friction like a ring, it will probably be fine.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.  finishing.com Brick, New Jersey

Unfortunetly I could not read all the comments on this topic, I just got too tired to read of the same problem over and over again. But please read the following.
I am a Jeweller and I personally re-plate jewellery for a living.
The truth is that plating Rhodium over white gold is a jewellery making standard. Depending on the kind of alloys, the color may vary on white gold. What consumers need to know is that Rhodium is realy a PLATING and it DOES wear out. Depending on how often jewellery are used and on the person, as well as on the quality of the plating and solution used. Some jewellery are hollow and the jeweller doesn't want to risk to contaminate a $450 solution, so he uses older solution.
Consumers also need to understand that a piece of jewellery CANNOT stay shiny forever. It's normal when the surface gets scratches over time.
There is no way to keep jewellery shiny forever. They need to be cleaned and polished regularly.
Now, if you really don't want you jewellery to discolor ask you jeweller to make your jewellery using SUPER WHITE K19 WHITE GOLD. This alloy does not require Rhodium plating and will stay white forever. Furthuremore, it will REQUIRE polishing and cleaning regularly.

Pierre P. Jewellery re-plater
- Montreal

We are a manufacturing jeweller located in South Africa.

We often manufacture wedding bands for couples. Typically, mostly because the engagement ring is 18ct white gold, the lady's ring is made in the same metal.

Gents are generally rougher with their hands and so we mostly manufacture their rings in 9ct white gold which is more durable. The lower gold content (37.5%) + the other white alloys combine to give a whiter finish without the need for rhodium plating.

This is the main reason why gents bands do not tend to go yellow.

Ant O'B
Jewellery manufacturer - Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

I've just read this thread with fascination. I have an 18ct white gold wedding ring and engagement ring. I've been married 4 years. 10 months ago I took the wedding ring in to the jeweller to be re-plated. This was the second time I had had it replated in the 3 years I had been wearing it (not the once every 5 they had originally advocated). Since I got it back last November, I literally only ever wear it to go to the office, I've been so careful with it, never wear it in bed, in the shower, to do DIY or gardening but not because of the 'turning yellow' problem cited here, but because despite the fact I hardly wear it, it is getting dinged and dented like you have never seen. Some of the sratches are so big you can fit a small fingernail down them. My engagement ring which I wear at the same time does not have this type of problem at all. I took it back to the jeweller at the weekend and he agreed that it looked more like a wedding ring that had been worn for 20 years, not 4 and was astonished when I related how careful I am with it. He started in about how I might have some sort of skin allergy to white gold but I find it hard to understand how a skin allergy, if it is such a thing, might be gouging scratches and dents in my wedding ring. It has now been sent back to the manufacturers for some kind of 'deep' re-rhodium plating which is going to take up to 4 weeks with a long explaination of what the problem is, but I'm not connvinced that this is going to solve the problem. A wedding ring should surely last for life but it this carries on we'll be buying a new one within a few years. Does anyone have any experience of this type of problem?

Kirsty Storr
- Norwich, England

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