Palladium Rings & Jewelry Versus Our Local Jewelers

I first learned about palladium rings and jewelry while looking for an engagement and wedding ring set for my (at the time) girlfriend.

I was fully in love and looking to drop some coin on a platinum ring for my favorite girl, I like gold, but it just wasn't the look that I was attracted to.

I began jewelry store hopping to find some answers to my questions, but only came up with hard sales pitches and "BUY TODAY" type offers instead of answers to simple questions. I was not prepared to buy at the time (I left my credit cards behind on purpose), I just needed answers, then, and ONLY then would I spend my hard earned money. Simple right? Well, no...

I kept noticing that they would speak to me as if I'd never seen a diamond before and it frustrated me. So I decided to turn to the internet and do my own research first and then I planned to return fully equipped with knowledge. So to the web I went, and boy did I get what I was looking for! INFORMATION! I searched and read for hours and hours at a time(almost obsessively), I wanted to get the most value for my money and at the same time give my girl the amazing diamond ring of her childhood dreams! Even if it was going to bruise my pockets, I was determined not to present my girl with some rinky dink, garbage ring.

This is where palladium rings first made an impression on me, I was searching for platinum as I said earlier, but then I found a few really interesting articles at an online jeweler! The things I learned caused me to investigate further and led me to find out why jewelers I later spoke with tried to dissuade me from buying it...

FACTS

• Palladium is a platinum group metal (meaning in the same family & same attributes as platinum – high purity, great luster, and white/gray appearance.)

• Unlike white gold, it is hypoallergenic.

• They don't tarnish in air, are the least dense and have the lowest melting point of ALL platinum group metals.

• Stays white forever, NEVER needs to be rhodium plated.

• It's is a precious metal. Even though the price of one ounce of pure gold is more than double the price of palladium, it is much rarer than gold.

  REASON FOR JEWELERS TO DISLIKE IT BELOW...

• Palladium rings are a (physically)harder & difficult metal for JEWELERS to manufacture and work with. (Are you a jeweler? If so I extend my apologies...)

• The current price of one ounce of pure platinum is $1325 and the price for palladium is $299. (Goldline.com prices as of Sept 21, 2009) Truth is, a platinum ring can cost up to 5 times more than a palladium ring! Both are rare precious metals that are naturally white, both are 95% pure, and stunning. But platinum will cost tons more because of current customer awareness and popularity.

I CAN'T BLAME LOCAL JEWELERS

Palladium rings are both harder for jewelers to work with and on (because of the strength of the metal) and on top of that they cannot charge nearly as much as they can for an identical ring made of platinum! If you were a jeweler, would you even bring this stuff into your shop? No! And the truth is, most don't. More work for less money results in jewelers across the country saying "well no, we don't carry that, but we have platinum here!". I was personally told "fibs" time and time again by jewelers about palladium, how it couldn't stack up to platinum and so on. If I hadn't done my due diligence and research I would have surely fallen for it. The only thing that didn't stack up was the amount of Benjamin Franklins I would've had to stack up for platinum.

So you might be wondering what happened with me and my girl... Well, unfortunately we never made it down the aisle, as a matter of fact a couple of weeks before I was to make the purchase of her surprise engagement ring, we decided to part ways. That's life.

The good thing is that I have all of my research completed and know what I'll be looking for when I do decide to get hitched! Truly, this precious metal offers customers a host of benefits that white gold and platinum can’t touch!

If you want to know where I found an over-abundance of quality information, it was with Danforth Diamonds, the information they give is UNTOUCHABLE they are very reputable and because they are on the internet, you have no one hounding you for a sale. They even answer email questions within a few hours on most occasions. This way, when you go to your jeweler you will go equipped with information that can save you money!