Four different things get sold under the heading "gold jewelry," and only two of them are gold the whole way through. The labels are legally defined but rarely explained, and the difference does not show up in a photograph. It shows up about eight months in.
Solid gold: 14K and 18K
Pure gold is 24 karat and far too soft for jewelry you actually wear. It bends, it scratches, it will not hold a clasp. So gold is alloyed with other metals for strength, and the karat number tells you how much of the finished metal is gold.
14K is 58.5% gold — which is why it is stamped 585. The remaining 41.5% is a mix of copper, silver and other metals depending on the colour.
18K is 75% gold, stamped 750.
The intuitive assumption is that 18K is simply better. It is more gold, and it costs more. But there is a real trade: the higher the karat, the softer the metal. 18K scratches and deforms more easily than 14K. For a ring worn every day, or a chain that gets caught on clothing, 14K holds its shape and finish noticeably better.
18K has a warmer, deeper yellow. 14K is slightly cooler and lighter. Both are unambiguously gold, both are hypoallergenic for most people, both can be resized and repaired, and both hold value.
We work in 14K because for chains and everyday pieces the durability trade is worth it. It is the same reason most fine jewelry sold in the United States is 14K.
Gold-filled
Gold-filled is not solid gold. It is a base metal core — usually brass — with a layer of real gold mechanically bonded to the outside under heat and pressure.
The important number is the ratio. In the United States, to be legally called gold-filled the gold layer must be at least 1/20th of the item's total weight, which is where markings like "14/20 GF" come from. That is a substantially thicker layer than plating, and gold-filled jewelry can genuinely last years.
But it is still a layer. It can wear through at friction points — the clasp, the underside of a ring, wherever the piece rubs. Once it does, the brass shows and there is no repairing it. Gold-filled cannot be resized in the normal way, and it has no metal value.
Gold-plated and vermeil
Gold-plated means a very thin layer of gold electroplated onto a base metal. The layers are typically measured in fractions of a micron. Under daily wear, plating on a chain or ring often begins to show wear within months.
Vermeil is a specific, better subcategory: a sterling silver base, with a gold layer of at least 2.5 microns and at least 10 karat, under the US standard. It is a real step up from ordinary plating — the base metal is silver rather than brass, so it will not turn your skin green — but it is still a coating and it will still eventually wear.
What this means in practice
If a piece is going to be worn occasionally, plated and vermeil are perfectly reasonable and cost a fraction as much. Nobody needs solid gold for a piece worn twice a year.
If a piece is going to be worn every day — the chain you sleep in, the ring you never take off — the arithmetic reverses. A plated chain replaced every eighteen months costs more over ten years than one solid chain, and you never actually own anything.
Solid gold can also be polished back to new, resized, repaired at a broken link, and sold or passed on. None of that is true of a coated piece.
How to tell what you have
Look for a stamp, usually near the clasp or on the inside of a band. Solid gold is stamped with its purity: 585 or 14K, 750 or 18K. Gold-filled is stamped GF, often with the ratio. Plated is stamped GP, HGE or GEP, or frequently nothing at all.
Be careful with descriptions that use "gold" as an adjective without a karat mark — "gold tone," "gold finish," "gold colour." Those are not claims about metal content.
What we make
Everything we sell is solid 14K, stamped 585, and ships with a 14K Gold Certificate stating exactly that. Never plated, never filled. If you want to know more about how the pieces are made, our about page covers it.