White Gold vs Silver vs Rhodium vs Palladium: What's the Difference?

Dimelo, what up,  it's your boy Gus from gusvillajewelry.com and in this video I am going to be answering a question that I get asked all the time: What is the difference between regular silver, palladium dipped, rhodium dipped, and finally white gold? Do they all look alike? Can you tell the difference from just looking at it with your naked eye? We're going to answer those questions. Let's do it.

So first off, let's start by going to school in chemistry and figuring out what these metals are. As we know, there are five main precious metals: gold, silver, palladium, rhodium, and finally platinum. Now because silver is such a finicky metal often, you're going to get some corrosiveness in it. You get this tarnish, it's like your hot ex-girlfriend… she requires a lot of maintenance. So a long time ago, the jewelry industry figured out that copper was the alloy that was reacting in the atmosphere and turning it black. So they used anti-corrosive metals like palladium and rhodium to dip the silver so that you don't have to have so much maintenance with it. 

So on this table, I have four examples of everything that I just explained before. We're going to look at all four of them, see the differences between them, and then see if it's worth it for you to rhodium dip or palladium dip or just leave it plain silver. And also one of the advantages when you buy white gold to dip it in something else and not just leave it as white gold itself. Without further ado, the first one I'm going to unveil is just going to be plain silver. Plain silver, of course, is a very beautiful metal. It is one of my favorite metals. I love it. When it's polished correctly it looks gorgeous. It has a very whitish-pale look to it. When it shines it shines like nothing else. I think, in my opinion, it shines nicer than even platinum. Or say for instance rhodium-dipped white gold. I just love the aesthetic of it. Like I said before, silver itself is very finicky. Most silver is either brought down to 950 or 925. And in the alloy that you mix it with typically you're going to put copper in it because it strengthens it but it also doesn't allow it to be too stiff. 

Now what happens with those chains when you're wearing them? The copper is going to react to the sulfur in the air and it's going to turn black. So, pros of wearing all silver. It's gorgeous. But it is going to require some sort of maintenance. You're going to have to throw it in a polishing rag, there's a lot of silver cleaner creams out there, maybe even in an ultrasonic. We made a whole video on how to clean silver. I'll put the link right here so you guys can check that out. But it is going to require some sort of maintenance on it. Now, for those guys that love cleaning their gun or doing some sort of maintenance of their car, washing their own car - they don't have a problem. People like me, who just rather not even deal with it, silver tends to be not for you. You want to put some sort of coating on top of it so that you can take care of it and not have to really worry about it. So here it is. Like I said, the silver piece, very beautiful, but it does have that palish look to it. 

Now we're going to go on to palladium which is its more expensive cousin. Here is palladium. Palladium has a very distinct color to it. Palladium has a very gunmetal look, it's the best example that I could possibly give so that people can see what it looks like. Palladium also has a wash, some people use it to wash silver. Typically palladium isn't what you dip white gold in. It's just strictly used to dip silver in. Because it has a very dark undertone to it, there are a lot of people out there who specifically love it or hate it. It's very polarizing. I'm not a big fan of palladium. However, I do sell it often because there are a lot of people who say, “Man, it just gives it a look that I don't see anywhere.” Palladium is dark, it does shine, it also protects the silver or white gold from tarnish just like rhodium. And to be honest with you I don't necessarily dig the look that much, but I could see where a lot of people do. It tends to be kind of a more subtle look, stays dark and never really lightens up and it's not so expensive as rhodium but it does come with a premium. 

As we shoot this video - just for context purposes - gold is about $2,500 an ounce, palladium is around $1,000 and rhodium (what I'm about to show you next) is almost double the ounce of pure 24K gold. Now who is this for? These are for people who look for this look specifically. Maybe someone that rocks stainless steel that likes that darker look. Someone who doesn't necessarily want something that everyone has. This is, again, a very specific look, it may not be for you. Very polarizing. 

So here's what the rhodium one looks like. Rhodium is the most expensive of the precious metals and it's not even close. As I mentioned before, right now the ounce is roughly around $5,000.  Now, the beauty of rhodium is that it will protect the silver the best. It's anti-corrosive, it's going to keep its shine and its luster. On top of the silver, it's a beautiful color. It looks like a white, but not so white like silver. It's more of a white gloss as you can see. When you put it on top of silver or even white gold it is a very, very very beautiful look. 

Now, the bad thing about rhodium is how insanely expensive it is. It's used a lot in the automotive industry. Rhodium is what you put in catalytic converters. It started back in the mid-19th century with Volkswagen putting it in their catalytic converters and ever since then, it's been in high demand. At the height of the pandemic, I believe if I'm not mistaken, the rhodium ounce was almost at $25,000 which was just the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever heard. You're talking about one ounce of rhodium being almost $1,800. It was madness but since then it's dropped a lot down. However, it is still very expensive.

Now here's another thing that you need to know if you're dipping silver in rhodium: you can't just put rhodium on top of silver. In fact, most people won't even do it for you. You have to dip the silver first in palladium and then you coat it in rhodium. Something about the rhodium being ruined whenever you put it in just silver, that you have to coat it with something before it touches the rhodium itself. I'm no biochemical engineer maybe someone could tell me in the comments below. Granted, it's two coats of something that's anti-corrosive so it's a good thing but it does hurt those pockets. This is an unmistakable look, classic, and at the end of the day, many many people are fans of silver dipped in rhodium, or even white gold dipped in rhodium.

Finally we have the classic, which of course is yellow gold that's mixed with an alloy to make white gold. Now this is a machine-made Cuban link. And of course, white base metals that are shiny are all going to kind of have the same look. However, white gold does have a slight undertone of yellow to it. In most cases, 99.99% of jewelers out there who mix yellow gold with white alloys will have some sort of yellow undertone. The reason why? You get expensive pieces say, for instance, Cartier or Tiffany or Rolex, who have their own white gold alloy and theirs does not have that yellow undertone is because they use very expensive metals that kill the yellow. What kind of metals are those? Platinum, palladium, rhodium - but they don't care! They're selling you these pieces for thousands and thousands of dollars. So to them, it makes sense for their alloy to cost almost as much as the gold itself that they're mixing it with. 

Most of us mortals who don't have a billion-dollar empire are going to use a cheaper alloy to make it white, and therefore it's always going to have a very slight undertone of yellow. As a result of that, is where you dip it in rhodium. Now this is white gold. It is dipped in rhodium, because 99.99% of them are going to be. Now does this look like everything else? In my opinion, it does. 

Anything that's white-based and dipped in rhodium - which ultimately most things are - are going to look very, very identical. It isn't until you start to get some wear on the piece itself that you can begin to notice the difference. The white gold is going to stay shinier longer, while the silver one is going to get that kind of opaque look after a while. Now for those people who want to save a couple of dollars, that's the answer right there. White gold is going to look exactly like silver when they're both dipped in rhodium. It's only after time that you're going to be able to tell the differences between the two. Now finally let's get some up close shots so that you can see the difference between the four, and we can answer that question that you guys have all been asking.

So there you have it. I hope this video was informative because again it is something that you have been asking for for many years. Again, if you guys have any other questions that you want me to answer please drop it down in the comment below and I'll make a video about this. Are you guys fans of white base metals? Are you guys more of a yellow gold or even my rose gold fans out there? And is this something that you guys would like? Are you guys even silver fans? Are you guys strictly gold or nothing else? Drop it down in the comment below and we can discuss this amongst jewelry heads and jewelry enthusiasts. I'll catch you guys in the next one. Holla at me.