Hi Yall, I work almost exclusively with silver but would like to grow
into gold–white and yellow. Specifically, can someone tell me how
the prices for white gold and yellow gold differ?
Thanks for your help.
Joyce Albers
cha70@aol.com
Joyce, The cost of gold sheet, wire, casting grain, etc, is based
primarily on the karat, or gold content of the alloy, not the color.
For example, 14K yellow, white & pink gold all have the same gold
content. The same is true for whatever karat you are using. All 18K
gold, regardless of color, contains 75% pure gold in the alloy. Joel
Joel Schwalb
@Joel_Schwalb
www.schwalbstudio.com
Hi Yall, I work almost exclusively with silver but would like to grow into gold--white and yellow. Specifically, can someone tell me how the prices for white gold and yellow gold differ?
Joyce, There are several factors, one of them being the alloy used. If
you use nickel alloy white gold, it will cost less than palladium
alloy white; the latter metal is quite expensive. Yellow gold usually
costs me about what the equivalent weight of pure gold would, meaning
I pay for the refiner to alloy it and fabricate the wire, but white
gold is costlier since I always use palladium. The times I’ve bought
nickel alloy white, it has been about the same cost as yellow.
Often I just buy the pure gold and make my own alloy, using the
made-up mixtures from the refiner. I have alloys for yellow, rose, and
nickel white, and I’ve also got some unidentifiable stuff that seems
to have been sent in error, and comes out suspiciously similar to
Hoover & Strong’s “Peach™”, but of course I could never label it as
such, since they don’t send that out in anything but karat gold. If
you don’t mind mixing your own alloys, it is a lot less expensive, but
your results might not be totally consistent from one batch to the
next.
Loren
There should be no difference between the price of white and yellow
gold. The only difference in the price of white gold would be a
palladium alloy. Then there would a great difference due to the high
cost of the alloy. If you are buying in the E. U. there is a strict
anti-nickel law and most casters and goldsmiths will use the
palladium alloy. I hope this is of some use.
Larry Paul
Larry Paul Casting Co.
740 Sansom St.
Philadelphia PA 19106
215-928-1644 @Lpaul
Joyce,
There is a discrepancy in the prices of different coloured gold’s due
to the added metals. As Joel has said 18ct gold, regardless of colour,
is 75% gold and 25% added metals. The 25% can be any metal that the
billion dealer wishes to add. These metals are chosen to compliment
the gold to create alloys that exhibits a desired quality, hardness,
ductility, colour …etc… My point is that the constituent metals
used in making alloys of white gold are more expensive than those used
in making alloys of, either, yellow or red gold. In particular
Palladium is used in white gold alloys and is trading at $650oz on the
market against about $250oz for gold… This has always made white gold
a little more expensive than the same carat of yellow and red gold.
However lately the discrepancy has become greater.
I’m not sure if the situation is the same in The States but in
Britain and Europe gold bullion prices have dropped, due to
Governments selling their gold reserves. Naturally, after some time,
alloys of yellow and red gold have followed suit. But, while gold
prices have decreased, palladium prices have shot through the roof.
The low cost of gold and the high cost of palladium means that white
gold has held its price.
Very roughly in Britain 18ct Yellow Gold is $8.25g and 18ct White is
$11.25g.
Dan.
Dear Joyce The first ? is nickel or palladium white, one is MUCH more
expensive then the other. after that just about any supplier will
have almost anything you want ( tube sheet wire ect) prices will vary
from day to day but one OZ of 14K yellow casting grain from Rio was
about 199.00 10 days ago HTH Ron