Author: Vintage Jewelry Antiques Editorial Team

Fine jewelry identification comes down to two questions asked in order: what metal is this actually made of, and who made it — and getting the first question right matters more than almost anything else, since it’s the difference between jewelry with genuine intrinsic value…

Reading the marks stamped into a piece of gold jewelry is the fastest, most reliable way to confirm genuine gold content, understand its purity, and distinguish solid gold from gold-filled or gold-plated pieces that only look similar at a glance. The Karat System American gold…

Sterling silver jewelry uses the same core purity standard and marks as sterling tableware, but jewelry brings its own maker’s mark conventions and a few jewelry-specific complications worth understanding separately. The Same 92.5% Standard Sterling silver jewelry is 92.5% pure silver, marked “STERLING” or “925”…

Platinum and white gold look similar enough to the untrained eye that they’re genuinely easy to confuse, but they’re fundamentally different metals with different marks, different weight, and different long-term care requirements. What White Gold Actually Is White gold is actually gold — naturally yellow…

Because genuine gold carries real melt value tied to the gold market, a handful of specific deceptions show up repeatedly in this hobby — worth understanding clearly before making any purchase where the price assumes confirmed solid gold content. Fake Karat Stamps The most financially…