What is gold vermeil?

The gilders' trade

For centuries, the way to make silver look like gold was to paint it with a paste of gold dissolved in mercury, then hold it over heat until the mercury boiled away. The gold stayed behind. The mercury went into the air of the workshop, and into the people working in it.

The Victoria and Albert Museum notes that mercury poisoning among gilders was alarmingly high, and that in the 18th century a gilder's average life expectancy could be as low as thirty years. The pieces they made, gleaming silver-gilt cups, mounts and jewels, are still in museum cases today. The method has almost entirely gone.

What survives is the idea, and a French word for it: vermeil.

What vermeil is

Vermeil is silver covered with a layer of gold. In modern jewellery it means silver that has been gold plated, and the American definition insists on sterling silver. In English it is also called silver-gilt, and the two names describe the same thing.

The word is borrowed from French, where it does two jobs. As an adjective, vermeil is a bright red. As a noun, it means gilded silver. In Britain it is usually said "VER-mail", and in America more often "ver-MAY".

The appeal is easy to see. You get the warm colour of gold on the outside, the weight and substance of a precious metal underneath, and a piece that costs far less than solid gold. The catch, as with any coating, is that the gold is only a skin. How thick that skin must be, and what you may call the result, depends on which side of the Atlantic you are standing.

From fire to electricity

The old method, known as fire gilding or mercury gilding, is described in detail in the V&A's collection records. Gold was ground to a powder and mixed with mercury, and the surplus mercury was squeezed out through chamois leather, leaving a paste with the consistency of butter. The metal to be gilded was cleaned with acid, the paste was brushed on, and the piece was heated until the mercury evaporated, leaving the gold bonded to the surface.

It produced a beautiful, durable finish, and a poisonous workshop. The V&A notes that fire gilding is now forbidden except under carefully controlled conditions.

The replacement arrived with electricity. Electroplating and electrogilding were patented by Elkington and Company in the 1840s, and the V&A describes electrogilding as safer than traditional mercury gilding. Instead of boiling off mercury, the gold is carried onto the silver by an electric current in a plating bath. Almost all vermeil made today is made this way.

How vermeil may be described in the UK

In the UK, the word that matters is "gold". Under the Hallmarking Act 1973 it is an offence for a business to describe something as gold, or partly gold, unless it is hallmarked or exempt. So the UK Assay Offices' guidance sets out exactly how gold plated silver may be described.

• It is hallmarked as silver. Gold plated silver is hallmarked as silver, because silver is what it is made of. No standalone gold fineness mark is allowed on it.
• "Gold" must be followed by "plated". If the description mentions gold, or a gold carat, it must also say silver, and the word "gold" must be directly followed by "plated".
• "Vermeil" is allowed, but only as an extra. The phrase "gold plated" and the word "silver" must still appear.
• "Silver gilt" is allowed on its own, as long as no gold carat is given with it.
• The gold must be at least 375, which is 9 carat, and the guidance says the gold layer should not exceed 2 microns.

The reason is simple. "22ct gold vermeil ring" puts a gold carat right next to the word ring, and a shopper could easily read it as solid gold. The approved wording keeps "plated" and "silver" in view.

There is one more British rule worth knowing. On hallmarked precious metal, the guidance does not permit any base metal under or over the plating, and it names nickel and copper specifically. Assay offices reject pieces where they find it.

The American definition

The United States comes at vermeil from the other direction. Rather than limiting how it is described, the Federal Trade Commission's Jewelry Guides define what it must be. Under 16 CFR 23.4(b), a product may be called vermeil if it is:

• a base of sterling silver,
• coated or plated on all significant surfaces with gold or gold alloy of at least 10 karat,
• of reasonable durability, and
• at least 2.5 microns thick throughout, measured as the equivalent in fine gold.

That last phrase is easy to miss. The FTC counts thickness in pure gold. Its own example, in the neighbouring rules on gold electroplate, is that 1 micron of 12 karat gold is equivalent to half a micron of 24 karat. So a lower-carat layer has to be thicker to reach the same figure.

A note to the rule deals with nickel. It is deceptive, the FTC says, to call something vermeil if the silver has been covered with a base metal such as nickel and then gold plated, unless that is disclosed.

Two microns or two and a half?

Put the two sets of rules side by side and something odd appears.

The British guidance sets a ceiling of 2 microns for gold plating on silver. The American rule sets a floor of 2.5 microns for vermeil. Read literally, a piece thick enough to be called vermeil in New York is too thickly plated for the UK guidance on gold plated silver, and a piece that sits comfortably within the UK guidance is too thin to be American vermeil.

The gap widens with lower carats. Because the American figure is counted in fine gold, a 10 karat layer would need to be about 6 microns thick to meet it, working by the FTC's own method.

Neither document explains its number, and the UK notes are guidance rather than law: the Assay Offices say no reliance should be placed on them for a legal interpretation, and invite questions. What the clash does show is that "vermeil" is not a universal standard. The same word carries a minimum thickness in one country and a strict set of wording rules in another. If you are buying with thickness in mind, ask the seller for the figure, and ask whether there is any nickel under the gold.

Living with vermeil

Any gold coating is worn away by rubbing, and it goes first on the parts that touch the most: the edges of a pendant, the underside of a ring, the links of a bracelet. GIA warns that abrasives, such as those in some metal polishes and toothpaste, can erode metal, and that chlorine and other bleaching agents can damage metal alloys. Both are worth keeping well away from a thin layer of gold.

For how vermeil compares with plain gold plated jewellery and with solid gold, including how each wears, see Vermeil vs gold plated vs solid gold. For the hallmark itself, see Gold hallmarks explained.

Gold without the mercury

The 18th-century gilders would recognise a modern vermeil ring at once: silver underneath, gold on top, the same warm colour they worked so hard, and at such cost, to produce. What they would not recognise is how it was made, in a plating bath rather than over a fire. The idea has outlived the method by nearly two centuries. The arguments over how thick the gold should be are still going.