Wheres the part where it starts to really suck?
A. Right here! If today’s rings were like your grandmother’s ring except with a layer of rhodium plated onto them, people would be happy. If you wanted it to knock your eye out you’d get it replated frequently; and if a more antique look pleased you, and you object to replating heirlooms, you’d just let the plating wear off or ask the jeweler not to plate it. But most of today’s rings are not of the same alloy as your grandmother’s! Once the jewelers recognized that “it’s going to be rhodium plated anyway” they talked themselves into accepting that the underlying metal didn’t need to be the pleasing shade of your grandmother’s ring. White gold is graded by color, i.e., whether it’s white enough to be left unplated — and most of today’s white gold isn’t (if interested, see the article White Gold Alloys: Colour Measurement and Grading at www.goldbulletin.org/downloads/Henderson_2_38.pdf which explains this whiteness factor). In fact, jewelry stores in the center aisle of malls sometimes
