Platinum Jewelry

Platinum is a metal with a range of unique properties that benefit both the jeweler and the customer. Once known as a silver of little value, it is now the most prestigious of jewelry materials.

For the Customer

Be content with the fact that you are wearing the most precious of metals. The density of platinum is higher than gold, making platinum jewelry about 25% heavier than 18K gold jewelry and 50% heavier than 14K gold jewelry. This gives platinum jewelry its hefty feel and a quality that is unsurpassed. Platinum is also chemically inert, so it will not tarnish, corrode, oxidize or discolor.

High Purity Alloys

A "950" quality platinum alloy means that 95% by weight of the metal content is platinum. Compare this to 18K jewelry which only has 75% gold by weight, and 14K that only has 58.3% by weight. Platinum jewelry manufactured from a 950 quality platinum alloy makes it ideal for customers who think they may have allergenic problems with certain metals.

Enhancing the Stone

"Platinum and diamonds - a marriage made in heaven". Platinum's white color and high luster make it the ideal material for setting diamonds. These two are very much a match made in heaven - the most precious of stones set in the most precious of metals.

High Luster

A unique property of platinum is the high luster achieved when polished, unsurpassed by any white gold. This luster gives your jewelry a brilliant reflective shine. Compare the reflectivities of platinum and white gold and you can see that it reflects with more intensity over a broader spectral wavelength range. This is very significant because the broader the wavelength range a metal reflects over, the whiter it appears, optimizing the look of your chosen diamond.

Other Properties

It is a common misconception that platinum is a "hard" metal and platinum alloys are "hard" alloys. This is not the case, but platinum does have a unique property that this misconception may have arisen from.

Work Hardening

Platinum alloys can "work harden" at a faster rate than a typical karat gold. This is best understood by imagining two pieces of rectangular wire, 2mm thick. One is made from a platinum alloy and one from an 18K yellow gold of similar hardness. Both are in the "annealed" condition i.e. they have been softened so that they can be deformed without cracking. If these pieces of wire are reduced to 1mm thick by rolling, this deformation will harden the metal in both alloys. But, the platinum will harden at a faster rate than the 18K gold.

This is important to the jeweler. As an example, if your diamond is set using a platinum tiffany setting, this will probably be soldered onto the shank. The soldering operation will anneal the setting, making it soft. But, by folding the prongs over and rubbing to set your diamond, the prong tips are hardened. If a platinum alloy is used for the setting material, it will harden at a faster rate and so will be more resistant to wear, so extending the life of your setting before re-tipping is required. Because harder tips are generated from an initially soft metal, platinum is popular when setting delicate stones such as emeralds.

Platinum - The "high deformation" Metal

Platinum also has the ability to withstand high levels of deformation before it fails. This is known as ductility and is measured as the property known as elongation. Elongation is how long you can stretch a piece of metal until it breaks, measured as a percentage of the test pieces original length. The graph demonstrates that you can stretch platinum alloys further than karat gold alloys until failure occurs, enabling the jeweler to design and manufacture more intricate and complex jewelry.

Wear Resistance

Compared to karat gold alloys, platinum alloys have high wear resistance. While most platinum jewelry will show a "patina of wear" after a while, a look which some wearers often prefer, do not think that your platinum jewelry is "wearing out". When jewelry wears, microscopic amounts of material are removed from the surface by the action of rubbing up against another ring or the surface of everyday objects. Gold jewelry tends to loose metal and become thinner and lighter with time, eventually requiring repair work to shanks and settings. Platinum tends to be moved about rather than removed, so it will last much longer before repair is required. The bottom line is platinum jewelry is more durable than gold jewelry.

Which Platinum Alloy to Use?

Although platinum alloys are the ultimate choice for your jewelry purchase, a word of caution must be noted. Some jewelers prefer to use softer alloys such as 95% platinum - 5% iridium or 95% platinum - 5% palladium to aid their manufacturing processes and make their job easier. The resulting jewelry will be very susceptible to scratches, dents and dings and will tend to mis-shape very easily. The Platinum Guild International USA is currently mounting a campaign to warn of the negative aspects of using these very soft alloys, stating that their use can harm the reputation of platinum and give platinum jewelry an undeserved bad name.

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