Think Pink! Buy A Vintage Rose Gold Ring

We are all familiar with yellow gold and white gold. But if you’ve been searching for a vintage ring, and you love the color pink, you may want to look for a vintage rose gold ring.

Oddly enough, there really is no such thing as rose gold. All gold is an alloy, meaning it is made up of gold and other elements. In the case of rose gold, the other element is copper. Rose gold is simply yellow gold that contains more copper. It is the copper which gives the gold its hue. The more copper there is the more color the ring will have. That is why it is sometimes referred to as rose, pink or red gold.

The popularity of rose gold, like much of fashion and jewelry of the day, was influenced by the colorful hues of the Russian ballet. For that reason you may also hear rose gold referred to as Russian Gold.

Like much of the fashion and jewelry of the 1920s and 30s a vintage rose gold ring was often the choice for a filigree ring. Metalsmithing was combined with jewelry making and the soft rose gold was perfectly suited to these lacy elegant designs.

Because copper tarnishes easily, and there is a fair bit of copper in rose gold, if you should purchase a vintage rose gold ring, it is important to take special care when cleaning it.

To remove the tarnish, you can use tarnish removers that are used to clean silver as it is the copper in silver that also causes it to tarnish. It can also be water cleaned with a soft brush and detergent free soap. Your jeweler may also offer steam cleaning, and this is also a perfect way to clean a vintage rose gold ring.