Vermeil

[Rogerwirecable]

Question concerning this material. My wife purchased 11 assorted pieces of jewlery at an estate sale marked .925 sterling Vermeil. What is this? Gold plated, filled? I'm just wonder how it would be processed when I get back to the states? So I can

 

[maynman1751]

Vermeil ( /ˈvɜrmɪl/ or /vərˈmeɪ/; French: [vɛʁˈmɛj]) is a combination of sterling silver, gold, and other precious metals, commonly used as a component in jewelry. A typical example is sterling silver coated with 14 carat (58%) gold. To be considered vermeil, the gold must be at least 10 carat (42%) and be at least 2.5 micrometres thick. In the US, sterling silver covered with a base metal (such as nickel) and plated with gold cannot be sold as vermeil without disclosing that it contains base metal.

Hope this helps. I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to recover. Like e-scrap sometimes! Someone with more knowledge should chime in.

 

[qst42know]

Digest the silver with nitric and add the gold foils to your next batch. Or use them (silver and all) to inquart some gold.

edited for clarity

 

[Rogerwirecable]

Thank You
I've not started any process yet still learning , reading. I'll just have her stash this until I learn Sterling processing

 

[nickvc]

I have processed some of this material because I couldn't get decent terms to sell as assayed bars. The route I took was to melt , granulate and dissolve in 50% nitric, decant and filter the sludge, rinse well and dissolve the powders in AR. To be fair if your processing karat scrap as pointed out this material is ideal to inquart with as you get the gold back for free.
Much of the plating is 18k and from the mixed batch I processed I recovered around 7 grams per kilo and got better terms for the silver and gold recovered. If you are looking to buy this material look for light weight items with a large surface area it increases the gold yield considerably and avoid heavy chains unless you can just buy it as silver scrap and the gold is a bonus.