Hi All: I noticed an ad from Tiffany in the April edition of Vogue
(US edition) offering a cuff bracelet made from “a new Tiffany metal
with the rose luminesence of a sunrise…” The bracelet appears to
have a pink glow that is enhanced by the reflection of the model’s
skin and the general pinkish background and lighting. Does anyone
know what this alloy is? I’ve made mokum=e gane, and it’s not as pink
as this. Could this be a higher-silver alloy of copper? It does look
quite lovely.
I noticed an ad from Tiffany in the April edition of Vogue (US
edition) offering a cuff bracelet made from "a new Tiffany metal
with the rose luminesence of a sunrise..." The bracelet appears to
have a pink glow that is enhanced by the reflection of the model's
skin and the general pinkish background and lighting.
OK, what do we know about this new alloy?
“Rubedo, meaning ‘redness’ in Latin, is the product of long
experiments to create a metal which combined warmth with prestige.
Tiffany’s said that the desired colour is “radiant with the glow of
‘first light’ that awakens a sense of wonder and ennobles the
spirit”. It’s certainly beautiful - an alloy of gold, silver and
copper which is almost pinkish gold, set in a collection of simple
styles - the kind Tiffany’s is known for.”
Tiffany copyright something? When they fly by the seat of their
pants on everything else?
I am sure they not only copyrighted everything they could, but
patented the alloys they used and formula. I think it is what they
don’t say in their marketing that intrigues me…
I would love to know just how much gold they used (if any) because
they don’t even mention “gold” anywhere.
Does that mean in America where 10 ct is the minimum for gold
(correct me if I'm wrong, my memory is fuzzy at the best of
times), Rubedo... isn't gold?
That is correct and if you look at the Tiffany ads they don’t claim
it is gold, what they say is it is an alloy of gold copper and
silver. And the work is not quality marked only trademarked.
That is correct and if you look at the Tiffany ads they don't claim
it is gold, what they say is it is an alloy of gold copper and
silver. And the work is not quality marked only trademarked.
Thanks for that James.
If it was 9ct, you can mark it as gold in Australia
If anyone is wishing to delve deeply into the Rubedo & Tiffany
conversation, there is a very interesting and lively 200+ comment
conversation on MSJA’s Linked In group… if you catch up on comments
from the beginning, you will know what has already been
covered/answered.
Hi there, I did take a walk up to our Tiffany’s to have a look…It
is nicely done, does glow and has a Tiffany hallmark…They have a
great PR campaign going–exclusively made for 2012 etc…And the
price points for Tiffany are well thought out. And does seem that
this metal alloy casts well,too.Now, it will be interesting to see
how it sells.
I did take a walk up to our Tiffany's to have a look..It is nicely
done, does glow and has a Tiffany hallmark..They have a great PR
campaign going--exclusively made for 2012 etc...And the price
points for Tiffany are well thought out. And does seem that this
metal alloy casts well, too. Now, it will be interesting to see how
it sells.
I had never thought that I see the day that Tiffany would disgrace
itself to such a degree. This is truly is a sad day. When Paloma
Picasso got on board, she was quite naive about jewellery
construction. I remember working on her Cage bracelet. The thing was
over 4 onces in weight. But the rim was less than 3mm. So, hinge
knuckles could not possibly support this weight. I floated an idea of
going to 14k alloy for the hinge. I was almost fired for the
suggestion. It was unthinkable to use anything but 18k alloy. And
now we have this rubedo abomination. How low the mighty have fallen!
I had never thought that I see the day that Tiffany would disgrace
itself to such a degree.
You have to know that the people at Tiffany’s have been working on
this for a while. Apparently waiting to see what happens with the
economy. This is a sign that the economy is not going to get better
for a long time. They roiled it out when they were desperate about
the bottom line.
I believe there is going to be an issue with how rubedo
(coincidence" rube"?) holds up to normal wear and abrasion and
chemical discoloration.
I saw a bracelet for $1700. 7 1/2 kt gold? A sign our country is
going down hill and will not recover for a really long time,
I hate to say ‘me too’, but Richard’s comment echoes something I’ve
been wondering about this paragon of marketing made real.
Namely “why 7.5K?” It’s got enough gold in it to have reasonable,
and irreducible production costs, but not enough gold in it to
allow them to market it as gold. Seems like the worst of both
worlds. Proportionally, it wouldn’t have cost that much more to
bump it up to 10K, so they could market it as a fancy gold alloy.
(ala ‘chocolate’ diamonds.)
The fact that they didn’t means something. Just what, exactly, I’m
not sure, but something. Either they really are solid, 24K idiots,
or there’s something in their philosophy that I haven’t yet dreamed
of. (Or C, there’s some metallurgical reason, but that seems like a
distant 27th sort of bet, given the Au/Ag/Cu system’s general
properties.)
At the moment, the cost inputs don’t make sense compared to the
selling point of the final products, and the decision to go with any
gold at all in an alloy that can’t be sold as gold is just plain
weird. Most puzzling.
Your country is bound to recover, you just need someone in control
of the finances that knows what they are doing, same with our
country, we got some interesting stuff going on that has the
potential to hammer our dollar.
I am going to disagree on this somehow reflecting badly on Tiffany.
They have perfected their niche and know their consumers… Label
driven “collectors”… much like the Yurman buyer, to be honest.
The gold content could be something’s as simple as… they needed
some gold in the mix to reach the desired shade of red. That being
said I find the marketing strategy extremely smart - on one hand…
Only so much gold content…
on the other hand… only so much time to buy it. So what they lost
in gold value, they got back by limiting availability.
They are the masters of marketing.
What will be interesting to watch is: will they release a Rubedo 2
with higher gold content or new designs in the current metal next
year.
