Palladium Jewelry is more common than it used to be and is now easier to find than it was. But many jewelers do not deal in it because people confuse it with platinum, despite the much higher value, and also it is a much lighter metal. Many people wearing jewelry want to feel some weight or substantial ‘feel’ which you don’t get with palladium.

Never the less Palladium jewelry is slowly becoming more popular as the high price of platinum (generally around the 1000 plus dollars per ounce) and the lesser price for palladium of only a third of that giving a higher profit margin than most precious metals.

Most palladium jewelry is 95 percent pure and the look is similar to platinum or even white gold. It also does not need to be coated to achieve the white shine as white gold does. It is also half the density of platinum which means that more jewelry can be made from it per ounce weight than platinum.

In addition US stamping laws do not place any restrictions on marketing palladium and as palladium is not recognized in the UK and many European countries as jewelry metal it is not hallmarked.

Palladium is, like gold, a ductile metal and falls between 40 and 44 Vickers annealed or as cast. This means it is not really hard enough for jewelry so a lot of effort is now going into develop compositions with other metals that will improve its hardness for jewelry as well as retain its shine and possibly improve its weight for the consumer.

Currently alloys such as silver, gallium, ruthenium are being trialed

Palladium melts at a higher temperature than gold and so care must be taken when alloying the various metals.

Palladium and Palladium Jewelry look set over the coming years to take a more prominent place in the jewelry field and it might be a good idea to keep a beady eye on this.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Buying Palladium.