[Jewelry making - Article 00000] - Re: [Orchid] Is white gold really hot?

[David L. Huffman]

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Hi Ron;

>     One of the things that I would like to explore is the gold color
>     issue. I find that many of my suppliers have over committed to
>     white gold 

    I remember when the Madison Avenue set began to really push white
    gold back in the 90's. The movie "Titanic" seems to have had an
    impact of public tastes, or at least that's what the marketers ran
    with. Since then I've seen a steadily increasing demand from my
    accounts for white gold. I must assume they know their market, so I
    comply. Recently I received an order for a number of custom pieces,
    heavy bezels in 18 karat white gold, to be set with... bolder opals.
    I'm insisting this be done with a high palladium alloy. This is
    really pushing the envelope, but then, I seem to get all this kind of
    extreme stuff. I'm doing a lot of work with Stuller new X-1 alloy, as
    per the requests of my accounts. Nice color, but a stubborn metal to
    work with. It's hard to solder, doesn't really anneal appreciable,
    but boy, it's white compared to other white golds. Frankly, I can't
    see taking a beautiful metal like gold and contaminating it to the
    point of making it look like nickel. And 18 karat white seems
    mindless to me. Pure marketing hype. What's the point? It's usually
    not even as white as 14 karat, just that you can charge more for it.
    But it's working characteristics, unless it's the more expensive
    palladium alloy, is miserable. I call it, "the Devil's metal". Talk
    about the public's perception being manipulated. 

    I hope to soon see the demise of white gold's popularity. I now
    refuse to do bright cut and pave in anything but palladium alloys,
    unless it's a good client and for some reason it has to be done
    otherwise. It's just a good way to ruin your hands, as far as I'm
    concerned. 

    It seems now that the demand for white gold can't go any further. I
    hope that's the case. I'd love to do all my gold work in 18 karat
    yellow and the white in platinum, but that will have to wait until
    and if I end up working exclusively on my own line for my own
    customers. I haven't done much with pure (or near pure) palladium,
    but I think it has possibilities. It has better working
    characteristics (other than the high casting temps) and more But the
    market will have to be educated about it to see it as a jewelry
    metal, and that will take years. Meanwhile, I've gotten good enough
    working with white gold that it doesn't give me a lot of grief. What
    seem worse to me than the demand for white gold is the obsession with
    "micro-pave". It's all over the place, and we know that a good part
    of it is very poorly made. I'm frankly sick of jewelry design that's
    just so much formless shapes of glittering white metal smeared all
    over with tiny diamonds that you don't dare put in your ultrasonic
    for fear you'll be re-setting half the stones. Its done, done, done
    to death. 

David L. Huffman

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