Vermeil vs gold plated vs solid gold

Three rings on a tray

Put three plain gold bands side by side on a jeweller's tray. One is gold plated brass, one is gold vermeil, one is solid 9 carat gold. In a shop window, on a bright morning, you would struggle to tell them apart. All three have the same warm yellow surface.

The difference is all on the inside, and it only shows over time, or under a saw. This guide sets the three side by side. If you want the story of vermeil itself, from mercury gilding to the rules on the word, see What is gold vermeil?

The differences at a glance

What is underneath

Gold plated is the broadest term. It means a layer of gold over something else, and the something else can be almost any metal. Most often it is a base metal, such as brass, copper or stainless steel. The UK guidance allows "gold plated" to describe gold over silver too, so the words alone don't tell you what is underneath.

Vermeil is a particular kind of gold plating: gold over silver. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission's definition goes further and requires sterling silver.

Solid gold is gold alloy all the way through. Pure gold is too soft for most jewellery, so it is mixed with other metals, and the carat tells you how much of the mix is gold. In the UK the lowest standard that can be sold as gold is 375, which is 9 carat. For more on the numbers, see Gold hallmarks explained.

How much gold is on top

For plated pieces, the thickness of the gold matters a great deal, because a thicker layer takes longer to wear through. Britain and America approach it quite differently.

The UK guidance sets a minimum quality for gold plating on silver, at least 375 parts per thousand, but no minimum thickness. It sets a ceiling instead: the gold layer on gold plated silver should not exceed 2 microns. A micron is a thousandth of a millimetre.

The US Jewelry Guides set floors. Gold or gold alloy of at least 10 karat may be called "gold electroplate" if it is at least 0.175 microns thick, and "heavy gold electroplate" from 2.5 microns. Vermeil must also reach 2.5 microns, over sterling silver. In each case the figure is measured as the equivalent in pure gold, so a lower-carat layer has to be thicker to count. On those numbers, American vermeil carries more than fourteen times the minimum gold of an ordinary gold electroplate.

Hallmarks and the words used

In the UK, it is an offence for a business to describe something as gold, or partly gold, unless it has been hallmarked or is under the exemption weight. That one rule explains the three different descriptions.

• Solid gold is hallmarked as gold, with its fineness number, such as 375 or 750. Gold pieces under 1 gram don't need a hallmark.
• Vermeil is hallmarked as silver, because silver is what it is made of. No standalone gold mark is allowed on it. If the description mentions gold, it must say "gold plated" and "silver", as in "18ct gold plated silver ring". "Vermeil" can be added, but a phrase such as "22ct gold vermeil ring" is not allowed. Silver pieces under 7.78 grams don't need a hallmark.
• Gold plated base metal can't be hallmarked at all. It can be described as "gold plated". Words like "gold tone" or "gold coloured" describe colour only, for pieces with no gold in them.

In the US, the rules work through descriptions too. Solid gold must have its karat stated whenever it is called gold, and "gold plate" must be preceded by the karat of the plating.

How each one wears

Every surface layer is worn away by rubbing, and it goes first where a piece touches the most: the edges of links, the underside of a ring, the corners of a pendant. When a plated layer wears through, what is underneath shows.

• Gold plated base metal shows the base metal, which is a different colour from the gold. How soon depends largely on how thick the gold was to begin with, and the minimums for ordinary gold plate are very thin.
• Vermeil shows silver, which is at least a precious metal and a pale, even colour. Once exposed, though, silver can tarnish, as all silver does in air and moisture.
• Solid gold has no layer to wear through. It scratches and dents, and the higher the carat the softer it is, but underneath every scratch is more of the same gold. A jeweller can polish it back.

Plated pieces can often be plated again. Whether it is worth doing depends on the piece, and on what is underneath.

Looking after each one

The good news is that the same gentle routine suits all three. GIA's advice for gold is warm water with a few drops of mild dish soap, and a soft cloth or brush for dirt in the crevices. The same guidance warns against two things: chlorine and other bleaching agents, which can damage some metal alloys, and abrasives, such as those in some metal polishes and toothpaste, which can erode metal.

For solid gold, those warnings are about keeping it looking its best. For a thin gold layer, they matter far more, because an abrasive that takes off a little metal is taking it off the only gold there is. That makes plated and vermeil pieces the ones to treat most gently:

• Put them on after creams, perfume and hairspray, and take them off for swimming, cleaning and the gym.
• Clean with a soft cloth, not a polish or a silver dip.
• Store them apart from harder pieces that could scratch them.

Back to the tray

A year on, the three rings from the tray will have started to tell you what they are. The plated band may be thinning on its underside, the vermeil may be showing a glint of silver at the edges, and the solid gold will have gathered a fine web of scratches, all of them gold. None of the three is wrong. They are simply three different promises, and the hallmark, or the lack of one, tells you which promise you are buying.