All That Glitters Is Gold-Filled

By Karen KarchFeb 26, 2021

An Explanation: What & Why For Gold-Filled?

It all began when we created Mini Milagros-inspired Charms for our Karch Wolfe Collection. 10k gold was selected for its beautiful color and as a way to keep these special pieces price-accessible, even with the price of gold being sky high. Unfortunately, a 10k solid gold chain brought these pieces out of a reasonable price range. So we had a problem to solve - a need to look into alternatives.

Although we’d heard the term gold-filled before, we weren’t completely clear what it really was. Gold-filled chains entered our radar as a possible solution to maintaining the golden look we hoped for at an optimal price.

As our research continued, we were happy to learn from a beloved client that she had been wearing some of her gold-filled pieces for more than 20 years with no loss of gold brilliance. We soon discovered gold-filled was an excellent option.

Gold-filled has different standards than the more common, “cheaper” alternative - gold-plated. Unlike plated, the filled is actually bonded to the brass internal chain using a special heat and pressure technique, and is legally required to contain 5% (or 1/20) gold by weight. Our gold-filled options are over 5% and made of 14k gold.

Having discovered this new metal option, we were inspired to play around with designs and explore how we could add more interest to these various chain-led styles. Being able to offer chains that are the right length to be worn as both necklaces or wrapped around the wrist as bracelets, affords the wearer versatility and choices. Many of these combine different styles of chain, giving them an a uniqueness and whole other style and vibe when it comes to affordable luxury.

We‘ve been really excited by the response to these designs and have since added more that highlight the amazing look of 14k gold-filled. Karch Wolfe now includes styles that incorporate chunkier chains as well as hoops with detachable multi-chain charms, making it easy to choose more than one of these golden treasures.