The gold alloy

The gold extracted in nature cannot be directly processed because it is too malleable and could not maintain a stable shape.

This is why gold, to be worked and transformed into a jewel, must be mixed with other metals. This new composition is called alloy.

The legislation obliges manufacturers to affix a mark on each piece of jewelry to specify in percentage how much pure gold is contained within. The stamp used to mark pure gold in Italy is 999.9 which corresponds to 24 Kt (karati) in the rest of the world, from a scale is articulated: 916 (22 Kt), 750 (18 Kt), 585 (14 Kt) and finally 375 (9 Kt). So if we take 750 gold for example, we will know that out of 1000 metal parts, those in gold will be 750 and the remaining 250 will be generically composed of other metals. The metals added can be the most varied: silver, copper, palladium, etc . The choice and the percentages of a metal rather than another determines the final color of the jewel. This is why there is red gold, white gold, pink gold, green gold and even black gold!

Often it is not possible to change the color of pure gold so radically. For example, in the case of 750, it still remains predominant in quantity .Therefore, alloys other than yellow need a "color reinforcement" to be applied which is technically called a galvanic bath. The galvanic bath is an external patina (chemical rhodium plating) that is applied to the jewel to bring out the desired color, for example white gold. The rhodium plating, over time and with the use of the jewel, can wear out and the original gold color can begin to re-emerge.

This premise is essential to get to explaining the alloy we use in our goldsmith workshop.

Daniela Vettori's gold is 750 yellow, that is 18 kt gold. Our alloy has a "secret recipe" that Daniela Vettori developed and fine-tuned in the early 1980s with the aim of enhancing the warm color of gold as it is found in nature. Our 750 alloy is composed of gold, copper and silver, whose percentages of the last two are secret and create the sunny yellow color that distinguishes our goldsmith's shop.

Our gold alloy is assembled and melted in our goldsmith workshop in Vicenza, maintaining the ancient goldsmith tradition for which each artisan goldsmith shop had its "secret gold recipe".

The fact of trying to bring the color of our yellow gold back to the proximity of how it is born in nature allows us not to use any chemical or galvanic treatment on our artistic creations and to give you a jewel that is as natural as possible. For these reasons we work white gold only on request, but we tend to advise against it.