The growing popularity of palladium silver and gold charm has led many to wonder about this "new" metal. The truth is jewelers have used palladium in jewelry for more than a century. This sleeper silver-white metal owes its existence to another, better-known precious metal, and its renewed popularity to better technology.
What is Palladium?
Palladium, a precious metal, belongs to the same chemical family as the much better-known metals platinum and rhodium. Found alongside platinum, palladium is similar in color to platinum--white-silver in appearance. It is lighter than platinum, but durable enough for jewelry applications.
History of Palladium
Palladium is anything but a newcomer to the jewelry market. Jewelers used palladium for jewelry as early as the Victorian era. During World War II, when the war effort needed platinum, palladium emerged as a viable alternative white metal, especially for use in fine jewelry and wedding jewelry. Two factors, however, contributed to the disappearance of palladium on the jewelry market during the last half of the 20th century. These were the difficulty to create a palladium alloy for mass-market jewelry, and the increasing popularity of gold jewelry.
Why Palladium is making a Comeback
The re-emergence of platinum for jewelry in the 1980s and 1990s made lower-cost alternative white metals return in popularity as well. White gold, which is actually yellow gold alloyed with other white metals, made a comeback, as did silver. However, the fact that white gold is rarely "white" and retains a yellowish cast unless plated with rhodium, and the fact that sterling silver is neither precious nor as durable as gold or platinum, opened the market for the reappearance of palladium. Furthermore, new alloy methods made reliable manufacture of palladium easier than in years past.
Palladium Facts
Palladium has much in common with its sister metal, platinum. In jewelry(Similar charm Here) ) alloys, it is 95 percent pure, similar to platinum. Its true, white-silver appearance rarely tarnishes and needs no plating to retain its color.