It is not well known that palladium is a charcoal grey metal and a member of the Platinum family. It is softer than platinum so jewelers consider palladium more ideal to work with. It is also cheaper and so larger jewelery pieces can be designed. It has an excellent resistance to corrosion and any palladium piece should bear a hallmark (in the US) of Pd950 or PD 500 to indicate the percentage of palladium to other metals.

Palladium is becoming more popular in jewelery and its malleability makes it ideal for setting gemstones. It is often alloyed with gold to produce white gold which tends to look rather gray in appearance so rhodium is quite often coated to give that bright white sparkle white gold bears.

Palladium is also tarnish free and hypoallergenic, which is to say people generally do not have any allergy to palladium, but sometimes, if mixed with other metals there may be an allergic reaction to those other metals, particularly nickel.

There are various “mixtures” of metals with palladium available. One such is 50/50 platinum and palladium. This has the advantage of being both valuable (the platinum being more than twice the value of the palladium) and harder and more resistant to wear. It also retains that whiteness that goes so well with gemstones, such as diamonds for example.

As gold and platinum increase in value palladium is often seen as an excellent alternative, particularly for pendants and earrings being lighter than both other metals and easier to wear therefore.

In Europe palladium is the standard for alloying with gold to produce white gold. It avoids the problems some people have with skin issues such as dermatitis and eczema.

Keeping palladium clean is very simple. A wash in warm soapy water then well rinsed to get any residue soap out of the crevasses and then completely dried is sufficient most of the time.

Palladium is an excellent precious metal to use and knowing these palladium jewelery facts will help you to decide that palladium is for you in the future.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 11:36 am and is filed under All About Palladium.