Wedding band (ring) material

blue note

Anyone feel like offering advice on these? I've been into three jewellers today and have had conflicting advice / recommendations.

White gold 9ct was recommended clearly my one jeweller. Harder metal, easier wearing.

Palladium I was told can't be resized, but then told it can in the next place. Was told it's the best wearing, also told white gold was.

Platinum I was told was would be easier to maintain because it's not plated.

Any insights people want to share would be appreciated!

Scarinae

White gold usually needs to be redipped or plated at intervals to keep its colour and stop it getting a yellowish tinge. How often this needs to be done depends on what the composition of the metal is (there is no such thing as pure 'white gold', it is an alloy of gold and other metals), how 'white' you want it to look and how hard the wear is on it is (for example if you wear it during housework and it comes into contact with cleaning chemicals, you spend a lot of time gardening or if you have a manual job). The best thing you can do here is ask the jeweller what the alloy is for their white gold and how often the ring will need to be redipped.

I don't have any experience with palladium jewellery, but palladium is a platinum group metal and they are very similar in colour. Neither of them needs plating. The main difference is that platinum is a much denser metal so it feels heavier on your finger than palladium does. Palladium can be cheaper than platinum too but it depends on fluctuations in the market. I don't think palladium rings are as widespread as platinum or white gold so not all jewellers will have experience in working with it, but if you want resizing etc done in the future you'll just need to bring the ring back to where you bought it or find a jeweller that does work with palladium.

woodchuck

I don't know much about a palladium (only that I've heard it's a cheaper alternative to platinum). But I was trying to decide between white gold and platinum when I was picking my engagement ring.

I found that a lot shops specialise in one or the other and obviously try to push their own metal! We went to a jeweler that does both in the end, so felt I got a less bias opinion there.

- Colour/shine: White gold can start to look yellow over time as the rhodium plating starts to wear down. So it needs to be redipped (the frequency seems to vary greatly depending on who you ask). Platinum isn't coated with anything, but may need a professional polished every now and again to make it shine (or our jeweler advised using boiling hot water straight from the kettle, fairy liquid and a soft toothbrush). Some people like the "patina" that platinum develops over time though and opt not to polish it.

- Durability: I think platinum is arguably the more durable metal. I'm not sure if it's more/less prone to scratches, but when it does scratch, the metal doesn't go anywhere. It's a more malleable metal, so it just gets moved around. Whereas white gold, when you scratch it - that little bit of metal is lost. Generally people advise getting platinum if you have a more manual job.

- Cost: Platinum is more expensive than white gold.

- Allergies: Platinum is hypoallergenic, white gold isn't. This isn't really an issue though unless you're allergic to nickle.

I went for platinum in the end. That was mainly because the design I liked was in platinum! I'm really glad I did though, because one week after I got it, I slipped and slammed my whole body (and my ring!!) straight into the pavement. It got a fairly noticeable scratch on the underside - but luckily because it was platinum, they were able to polish/massage it out without losing any of the metal. If it was white gold, although they could've polished it out, I would have lost some of the metal itself. My engagement ring is quite thin, so I'm happy to know that the metal won't wear away over time. I'm going to have to get a platinum wedding band too so that I don't have different metals rubbing against each other, but I'm willing to take the hit on the cost there!

wotapalaver

Woodchuck's post is spot on.

The other (much cheaper) option might be Argentium silver. Doesn't tarnish at all like regular sterling silver, is also hypoallergenic (or close) and looks really nice, where as I don't find sterling silver at all attractive. Also not plated, so no issue there.

W