we use gold filled and sterling silver
Solid Gold Jewelry is a piece of jewelry made entirely of gold -- inside and out. It’s the most expensive and durable among the other types of fine gold jewelry. Solid gold items can be either 10K, 14K, 18K, or 24K. Karats (K) are percentages of actual gold in the jewelry piece. Fine jewelry from European manufacturers use a different numbering system than karats. Instead of 10K, 14k, 18K and 24K, European jewelry has numbers like 417, 585, 750 and 999 for pure gold. These numbers are referred to as the “fineness”, and they represent the percentages of gold content in the alloy—just like karats.
Gold Filled Jewelry consists of 2-3 layers of solid gold (bonded or pressed) with other metals a brass, silver, or other base metal. These layers of solid gold can have different karatage (10K, 14K, 18K and 24K). Gold filled jewelry is a typically a better alternative to gold plated jewelry. It won’t tarnish and it’s much more durable than gold plated jewelry. However, after about 20-30 years, you can begin to see some slight fading of the color.
Gold Plated Jewelry is the least expensive alternative when it comes to jewelry. However, by paying less you are also sacrificing quality of the jewelry piece. Gold plated jewelry is made from a process called electroplating. It’s a process that uses an electric current to reduce dissolved metal cat-ions so that they form a thin coherent metal coating. This process normally uses brass, copper, nickel or silver as a base.Then, a super thin layer of either 14K, 18K or 24K gold is applied with electrolytes on that base. Ultimately, it doesn't even really matter what the karat of that gold plating is. It's so thin (less that 1% of the total weight of the item) that it can be easily scratched off from the base. Essentially, it doesn't have a real gold value.
Vermeil is an item that is made of sterling silver and plated with a thin layer of gold. The gold karatage that the silver piece is plated with shouldn't be less that 10K, in order for that piece to be considered as Vermeil. Also to meet the US vermeil jewelry standards the thickness of gold on the piece should be at least 2.5 microns.