guide to gold-filled jewellery

Gold is one of the world’s most loved and valued precious metals for thousands of years, but it is also one of the most expensive so jewellers have developed clever techniques to add layers of gold to cheaper materials to make an affordable version of gold.

The various techniques and terms can be confusing, so here is a short explanation of the technique we at Talia Heritage use:

Gold-filled

With gold-filled, a layer of solid gold is added to a base metal, often brass but it can be any metal. It differs from the better-known technique, called gold-plate, in several ways but the most significant for shoppers is the amount of gold used. Typically gold-filled is 5% gold, 100 times more than gold-plate, which uses minuscule amounts of gold, typically just 0.05% gold. Because there is more gold, gold-filled wears off more slowly.