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Article: White Knights: can new alloys solve the problems with white gold?
- Article from:
- Modern Jeweler
- Article date:
- July 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Cygnus Business Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Until a year ago, jeweler Mark Fingerman saw white gold as a necessary nuisance, if not an evil. Because sales at Valentino's, his Navato, California, store were 80 percent vanilla versions of the metal, he resigned himself to the constant cost of rhodium replating and the occasional head and gem replacement when overly rigid nickel white gold prongs broke.
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And, oh yes, he had a third complaint. Some customers developed allergic reactions to white gold because it contained nickel as a bleaching agent. "Chlorine leaches nickel out of gold," Fingerman explains, "and that's a real problem in a state where swimming pools and hot tubs ...