how can you tell the difference between platinum and white gold?

yes...by the price tag.

Platinum looks darker to me..I prefer white gold.

Platinum is heavier than gold and harder but generally not as bright. If it has a hallmark it will show the assay office e.g. Birmingham an anchor, the standard .950. White gold will show a standard mark of .375 for 9ct, .585 for 14ct and .750 for 18ct. White gold is yellow gold bleached white by adding a white alloy. It is generally plated with a white metal called rhodium a bye product of platinum otherwise white gold can show a yellow tinge. To look at a piece of jewellery, for example a wedding ring on someones finger, it would be difficult to tell the difference between silver white gold or platinum. On a gem ring you may see the 18ct hallmark or just 18ct plus the word Plat. this is where the shank is gold and the setting is platinum. Nowadays because 18 white gold is harder than it used to be the white setting may also be white gold. Also platinum is far more expensive than gold, which is a downside as people wonder why they should more when it is difficult to tell the difference. You can have the metal tested by acids which shoes a different reaction to the metals. If you have a piece of jewellery and you want to find out for sure then take it your local jeweller. Hop this helps.

For most jewellery white gold is going to do the same job as platinum. Platinum is heavier and a bit more durable. It can be fabricated better when making complex items than gold, but simple solitaire rings generally are not made in a way that platinum is totally required. Platinum is easier to hand engrave, but there is plenty of engraved white gold jewellery, too.

When not rhodium plated, white gold is a bit yellowish and platinum is more grayish in colour. Rhodium on a ring is a short term plating anyway so it is only an initial "look".

People will almost always recommend platinum, if you can afford it. I basically agree, but I know many people who wear 14kt white gold diamond rings every day.... they are light weight and look just fine.... so the answer is really a matter of choice in most cases.

Best of good luck!

Fluxpattern you are so wrong! Platinum is not easier to engrave! It has an incredibly high melting point in comparison to gold, and so requires alot more skill to craft a platinum ring. A platinum ring is alot more durable, and will generally not tarnish over time.

Bottom line; the price. Ten times more than gold.

Back at you Flux! Or is that what your ring is made of?!

If you desire to be specific, a spectrographic analysis would be your best bet. This type of test can be set up so as to give you parts per million of any other metal containment's (other than gold or platinum) on the periodic chart. Your question must be how pure do you desire these two metals to be. Company's such as Johnson Matthey and Engelhard could do this analysis. However, they would need to grind a less than a gram of metal off the parent metal to run this test. Bare in mind pure platinum and pure gold aren't 100% pure at all. If you were purchasing either of these metals it would be your choice to to tell the two company's above in parts per million how much contamination you are willing to accept.

They are one and the same! I would not bother with platinum/white gold...people cannot tell just by looking whether it is platinum/whitegold or silver. I would have traditional gold every time!

Platinum, is heavier and much more expensive. White gold is lighter, cheaper and doesn't shine as much as Platinum. You can really tell the difference when they're side by side.

White gold is an alloy of gold and at least one white metal such as silver or palladium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_gold

Platinum is a pure metal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum

White gold can be difficult to tell from platinum, but generally platinum is slightly greyer and sometimes the white gold has a very slight yellowy tinge to it.

Platinum is heavier than white gold you fool

Stop being a cheap skate and by the platinum one!

Platinum and gold are elements but there's really no such thing as "white gold".

I suspect the electrical properties would vary so perhaps you could check the resistance.

White gold is heavier I think but my daughter has a platinum ring and I cant really see any color difference.Platinum is more expensive.