What is "high palladium"?

Palladium is a soft silver-white metal that resembles platinum. It is the least dense and has the lowest melting point of the platinum group metals. It is soft and ductile when annealed and greatly increases its strength and hardness when it is cold-worked.

If the jeweler is using 78% gold in the mix, he or she is doing you a favor. The closest stamp for this is 18k but since 18k is 75% pure gold, your ring is actually 18.72 karat, a shade above 18k. I suspect the palladium content is not the full 22% but a shade lower with some other metal such as silver in the mix. This makes sense for a good metal flow in creating castings or in forming the metals. Then again, if the jeweler makes up the alloy from pure gold and palladium, perhaps the full 22% is used. I have not heard of an 18k white gold with this very high content of palladium but the jeweler may be making it and has found it works well. What you have is “very high” palladium white gold if the figures are correct.

I hope this helps you.

Regards,

Warren

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