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GEM & GILD

Metals

Materials Decoded

What the metal in your jewelry actually is, what it is worth at its asking price, and how long it will last before the finish gives out.

#ad — we earn a commission on qualifying Amazon purchases at no extra cost to you. How this site is funded. Prices are live and shown as of October 23, 2026.

Close-up of gold-toned and silver chain links on a bone-colored surface

Almost every confusing thing about buying jewelry comes down to one question that sellers are not required to answer clearly: how much metal is actually on this? A listing can say “18K gold” when the gold is a coating measured in millionths of a meter. It can say “gold” when the piece is brass with a film on it. None of that is illegal. It is just incomplete, and the gap is where people lose money.

This hub closes the gap. Every page here does the same three things: names the material honestly, states what the specification means in months of wear, and gives you the price you should expect to pay for it. A plated item is called plated on every page of this site, every time.

The four ways gold gets onto jewelry

In rising order of how much gold you are actually buying: gold-plated (a coating typically well under one micron, applied to an unnamed base metal), gold vermeil (gold over sterling silver, and in the US it must be at least 2.5 microns thick to use the word), gold-filled (a bonded layer that must be at least 5% of the item’s total weight - roughly a hundred times the gold in typical plating), and solid gold (the karat describes the whole piece, not a surface).

Those four words describe products whose realistic lifespans differ by more than an order of magnitude, and they routinely sit next to each other in the same search results at similar prices. Knowing which one you are looking at is the single most valuable thing on this site.

Silver, steel and titanium are a different question

Sterling silver, stainless steel and titanium are not coatings at all - they are solid metals, so nothing can wear through. Their differences are about tarnish, skin reaction and repairability. Sterling tarnishes but polishes back and can be repaired by any jeweler. Steel never tarnishes but usually cannot be resized or soldered. Titanium is the only one that is genuinely nickel-free when the listing names an ASTM grade, which is why it is the answer for reactive ears. The head-to-head that settles it for most people is sterling silver vs titanium.

What we do and do not claim

We have not handled these pieces. What we do instead is compile the published material specifications, work out what a stated thickness means in months of daily wear against an explicit wear model, and cite the sources so you can check the arithmetic yourself. Where a listing does not publish a number, we say so rather than assuming a flattering one. That happens more often than you would like, and it is itself useful information: a seller who will not tell you the plating thickness is telling you something.

Where to start

If you are trying to decode a specific listing, start with the three-way gold comparison. If your ears react to earrings, start with what “hypoallergenic” actually means - the word has no legal definition in the US and that is the whole problem. If you just want to know how long a cheap chain will last, the plating lifespan page has the arithmetic laid out step by step, with every assumption stated.

Everything in Materials Decoded

43 pages. Where a page ranks products, its current top pick and live price are shown here so you do not have to click through to find out what we recommend.

Every page in this hub links back to the material or stone explanation that justifies its recommendations, so you can check any claim one click away rather than trusting it. If you would rather see how the scoring works first, read the methodology.