14k white gold price per gram

14k white gold is 58.33% gold, the same as 14k yellow. The remaining 41.67% is where they differ: white gold uses palladium, nickel, silver or zinc in place of the copper that makes yellow gold warm. Melt value depends only on the gold fraction, so the two are worth the same per gram, to the cent.

Most white gold is also rhodium plated to get the bright cool finish people expect. Rhodium is more expensive than gold by weight, but the plating is a few microns thick, and it is not recovered in refining. It is worth nothing at resale.

When rhodium plating wears through, the slightly warm alloy underneath shows and the ring looks dull or faintly yellow, usually first on the back of the band where it rubs. This is normal wear, not a sign of fake gold, and replating costs very little at a jeweller.

If you are selling for metal, do not replate. It adds nothing to the melt value and the refiner will not see it. Replate only if you intend to keep wearing the piece.

There are two families of white gold alloy and the difference is not cosmetic. Nickel white gold is harder, brighter and cheaper to make. Palladium white gold is softer, slightly greyer and considerably more expensive, because palladium is a platinum group metal that has at times traded above gold.

Nickel is also the most common contact allergen there is. The EU restricts how much nickel jewellery may release against skin, so European white gold is predominantly palladium based. The United States sets no such limit, so American white gold is far more often nickel based. If a white gold ring has ever left a rash or a grey mark on your finger, nickel is almost certainly why.

At resale this is a small caveat to the identical value rule. A refiner assaying a large palladium bearing lot may pay slightly above the gold only figure. For a single ring nobody will make the distinction, and you should not expect it to.

The two look nearly identical once polished, and platinum is worth substantially more. The stamp is the fastest check: platinum is marked 950, 900, PLAT or PT950, while 14k white gold carries 585 or 14K.

Weight settles it if the stamp is worn away. Platinum is about 60% denser than 14k gold, so two rings of the same size in the two metals feel obviously different in the hand. If a ring seems unusually heavy for its size, have it tested before selling it as gold. People have sold platinum at gold prices, and no buyer is obliged to correct you.

A white gold ring routinely costs more in a shop than the identical yellow ring, which makes the equal melt value counterintuitive. The gap is manufacturing, not metal: palladium costs more than copper, the rhodium plating is an extra finishing step, and white alloys are harder to work and to size.

None of that survives into the second hand market. A buyer is paying for 58.33% gold and the rest is scrap regardless of what it cost to make, which is the same reason a designer setting fetches melt value at a pawn counter.