Rings -White Gold v Platinum

smileygal

Hi,

Having to decide between platinum and white gold rings and wondering about people's experience/opinions, as have heard that platinum does/does not go dull and white gold repolishing and recoating seems to incur expense and effort every 6 months!

Or is it the jewellers claiming it needs to be done more often than necessary?

Shabadu

I've had my white gold engagement ring for a year and it's still perfect. The thing is, white gold is a lot softer than platinum, so you should make sure the karat of your engagement ring and your wedding ring is the same or one will denude.

White gold is also significantly less expensive.

babaduck

I wouldn't necessary say that platinum "dulls" - it's more of a mellowing effect as time goes on - I've had my rings cleaned & polished once, and they look fab. My white gold eternity ring is 2 years old & needs replating now - it's definitely showing knocks on the back of the band far more than my platinum wedding & e-ring bands

The Sweeper

White gold dulls as well. Depending what you get, it could be rhodium-plated yellow gold (a metal from the platinum family), or a nickel and gold alloy, or a palladium alloy (another platinum metal). I have a white gold wedding ring and a red gold engagement ring. I had the white gold ring a year before we chose an engagement ring. By the end of that year I'd really put it through the ringer - washing dishes, cleaning house with it on, never taking it off etc - and it showed. It was dull and battered-looking - like a silver ring. I think it was originally a rhodium plated alloy.

The jeweller where we got my engagement ring took the wedding band for sizing, and resurfaced and polished it as added service (love him, he rocks) - it seems he put a far better quality surface on it, as two years on, even with me being more careful, it still looks FAR better than it did originally after a year's wear.

I suppose the only metals you can really trust to age well are the purer kinds - though my red gold ring is still shiny as a new pin...

iguana

The thing with white gold is that it isn't a naturally occuring metal. It is actually yellow gold, bleached to remove the yellow and the plated in rhodium. It will generally need to be re-plated every 5-10 years, although sometimes sooner due to a bad quality plating. White gold was invented in the 1920's as a cheap alternative to platinum.

Platinum is naturally occuring, though probably not from earth as it's incredibly rare (35x more so than gold) but found in concentration around meteor impact sites. The advantages that it has is that it is harder for it to scratch and when it does it doesn't lose mass, it just becomes displaced.

However, the mining and refining process for platinum is incredibly destructive. It also is for gold, but platinum can be even worse. Though there are options to buy recycled, environmentally aware jewellery. I bought from these guys, and they were great. I was tempted by the white gold as it's much cheaper, but decided that it's a one off for an item of jewellery I'll be wearing forever, so went for the platinum. They also have palladium options.

I can't tell you how hardwearing it is thoughm, as I've only been wearing it since Saturday.;)

bonkey

iguana wrote:

Platinum is naturally occuring, though probably not from earth

<aside>
No elemental metal is "from earth". Indeed, rarely (if ever) has there been the necessary (natural) conditions for any elements to have been made on earth.
</aside>

Topic-relevantly, you can get unplated white gold, though it won't appear as white as something plated and can be quite expensive if you get one of the "better" alloys (e.g palladium instead of nickel)

Personally I don't get the plated thing. Why would you want a gold ring, only to hide the gold under a plate of something else?

Having said that...we're off to our ring-person next Monday to have a similar discussion. We're hoping to make our own rings, and we've narrowed the material choice down to these two. A lot will depend on what she's using as white gold, I suspect....and what I'm told the right decision is by She Who Must Be Obeyed

jc

smileygal

Thanks for all the replies : final decision is platinum!!

The eco-friendly jewellery is interesting thanks; however, I would not buy something so important without trying it on first (all part of the excitement!!)