The gold vermeil or pronounce as “ver-may” is a piece of metal, in general sterling silver (92.5% of silver) or fine silver (99.9% of silver) coated with gold for the thickness of 2.5 microns or more. This vermeil piece is improved in quality for silver or sterling silver jewelry. In general, the gold quality should no be less than 14K, for this vermeil product. The higher of gold quality used to cover the silver metal, the higher in this gold vermeil jewelry.
The vermeil jewelry is based on the technique call “electro plating”. However, there are two different type of the electro plating which you should know before going with the vermeil jewelry.
1. The Flash Plating. This technique is applied when the silver metal is dipped into the electroplating solution in a short period of time. The thickness of gold coated over the metal piece is only about 0.25 micron or even thinner. This method is also called as “color plating” which only little amount of gold will cover on the metal pieces. The coating will wear off only after a few week of jewelry use.
2. The Micron Plating. Base on this method, the thickness of gold is actually measured for exactly number. This is the standard method that use of the gold vermeil jewelry and also for plating watches. The metal piece will be leave in the electroplating solution for certain of time, to make the gold coated on the metal surface for at least 1 micron or even more. But the standard thickness for gold vermeil is about 2.5 micron while for watches, the thickness should be more than 5 microns.
The color for gold vermeil jewelry is depend onquality of gold use. The micro plating of 14K, 18K, 24K, 32K of yellow gold, pink gold, rose gold and other gold tone will give the different color jewelry pieces. You can choose for the color you like. Just check for the quality and method use for the gold vermeil creation.
Go with the jewelry supplier you can trust, if you are going with the gold vermeil jewelry. The method made is needed to review as you might not be able to differentiate between the flash plating and micron plating method. Make sure that you go with the jewelry who you can trust. You can save lots of money on the right gold vermeil jewelry pieces, instead of going with the pure gold jewelry. But check for the right piece with the right jewelry.
