Have you heard about the term “vermeil” before? If yes, what is the word refer to. If no, it’s time for you to learn about the meaning of “vermeil”.

Where will you see this term, vermeil? Well, this term is used in the world of jewelry. Vermeil is a piece of at least 92.5% silver coated with at least 2.5 micron of gold. The product is then called “gold vermeil”. The price of gold vermeil is also depended onquality of coated gold. In general, the gold content for coating should not be less than 14K. This is the minimum gold content for gold vermeil jewelry.

The vermeil jewelry is generated using the technique called “electro plating”. There are two types of electro plating technique,

1. Flash plating – this method is applied with the gold thickness of 0.25 micron or less than this number. The method including dipped the pieces intoelectroplating solution of a short time. The product can also called as “color plating” as only little gold will be coated on the surface and able to wear off within a short time.

2. Micron plating – for plating of gold with 1 micron or more in thickness over the surface of jewelry piece. This is the standard method for generation of vermeil jewelry. The piece is placed insolution for electroplating for a longer time, compare with the flash plating.   The minimum of gold thickness for gold vermeil jewelry is 2.5 micron. The longer you placed the piece inelectroplating solution, the thicker of gold coat on jewelry pieces.

For the flash plating, the products after this electroplating method are not classified as gold vermeil. If you want to get the new gold vermeil pieces, make sure that you have check about the coating method before make your decision.

Where can you buy the gold vermeil jewelry? Well, there are lots of places offer the gold vermeil jewelry for you, start from your local jewelry shop closed to your place to various shops in the internet world. Good thing for local shop shopping is, you can look and check for the jewelry quality by yourself, but the price might be higher than the one in the online shop. If you are willing to go with the online shop, look for a reputable of the seller. You should also check for the seller feedback if you are new with the shop. Think and carefully check for both shop and product quality before make your purchase. Good luck.

Amber is a well known fossil resin that passed through time. There arenumber of change occur during amber processing production. So far, the oldest amber has been recorded at 345 million years old. The oldest one that contained an inclusion in its body was aged about 146 million years ago.

Amber has been used as jewelry or decoration items for thousands of years. It isnatural product, nature made product and human do notice about its presence. Therefore, there are lots of items that used amber as its part for the purpose of decoration. You can see from the present of amber in necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings, rings, pendants and etc.

The process for amber production is taking a long time, for processing. Therefore, the product during the process called copal has been used recently as amber, which actually not the real amber. Copal is a “young resin”, also from the ancient treesbut the polymerization is not yet completed. It is always much younger than real amber and still has some character that is unlike amber, for example its density. Copal is generally less dense than amber.

To determine whether the piece in your hand is amber or copal, here are some tips for you.

1. The hot point test – this test is performed using a very hot needle and put it into the amber. The real amber will create a piney smell or resinous burnt smell while the fake one can have electrical, plastic smell instead. However, this method will damage your pieces which is not really a suitable method for most people.

2.  Acetone test – this test is based on the use of acetone, an odoriferous chemical reagent. Acetone isgeneral component for nail polish reagent but can’t really react with the real amber. Copal will react with acetoneand it will show sticky surface after acetone application on its surface. Plastic can dissolve directly with acetone, therefore, you can tell the different between real amber and fake amber within this acetone application.

3. Fluorescent test – the real amber can always fluorescent. When the ultraviolet (UV) light is illuminated on the amber, it will fluorescent directly. The common colors you can see from these real ambers are yellow, green, blue and orange. The intensity of each piece will be varied according to amber composition. If you have a black light, just shine the light to the stone and see whether the stone is shine or not. This is the most popular method foramber test.