Palladium for your wedding ring?

Thought I would post about a recent trend regarding wedding rings and wedding bands.
The great majority of engaged U.S. couples are interested in a white metal for their wedding rings. For the last decade most have went with white gold, or platinum if they could afford it. A platinum wedding band, until just the past couple years, was about double the price of a white gold wedding band. But now with the price of platinum going through the roof at over $2050 per ounce, a platinum wedding band will run you about 4.5 - 5 times the price of the same ring in white gold. This pushes the price of a mens platinum wedding band in the range $2,000 and higher.

Several of the better designers and manufacturers of mens wedding bands saw this coming a couple years ago. Scott Kay, Tacori, Novell, and others have devoted considerable resources to developing manufacturing techniques to use palladium as the "new white metal".

What is palladium? Palladium is a rare, naturally silvery white metal, with the chemical abbreviation of Pd. It is considered a precious metal, as of July 3, 2008 an ounce of .9999 palladium listed for $462 on www.goldline.com.

The metal was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, who named it palladium after the asteroid Pallas. The asteroid, in turn, was named for a Greek Goddess of Wisdom.

Palladium is often found where platinum is found and is considered part of the platinum metals group.

Benifits of platinum for the jewelry maker are that it resists tarnish, and is extremely ductile, meaning that it takes readily to working. When palladium is cold worked, the tensile strength greatly increases. Palladium also resists chemical corrosion.

For many years palladium has often been used as an alloy in the production of white gold jewelry and findings. Typically, white gold is alloyed with nickel, but if it is alloyed with palladium the resulting color is much "whiter".

Manufacturing palladium jewelry presents a different set of challenges for the manufacturer. For this reason the vast majority of jewelry manufacturers do not cast palladium. What I have always found interesting,however, is that palladium rings manufacturered in Europe from the 1930's and 1940's are occasionally seen. So there were some very fine jewelers over half a century ago who were also excellent metallurgists.

As time goes on, I think we'll see more and more jewelers and manufacturers offering palladium, even featuring palladium as the white precious metal of choice for their palladium rings.

JR Yates

New collection from Edward Mirell

As you probably have figured out already, I am a huge fan of Edward Mirell's titanium jewelry collections. Ed Rosenberg, the designer, has done it again with the release of three new collections. How does he keep coming up with these cool new designs I do not know.

Each collection features a black titanium ring, (one ring is set with a diamond and one ring is set with a black star sapphire), matching bracelet, necklace and cufflinks. The styles are unlike anything else out there on the jewelry market. Incredibly unique designs. Kudos to you Mr. Rosenberg!

These three titanium collections, the Tri-Dome, Mediterranean and Tuxedo, are now available for perusal on Titanium-Jewelry.com.

--J.R. Yates

J.R. YATES ICONIC Ring Boxes

In light of the unique styling of the J.R. YATES ICONIC collection of mens rings. I felt that the packaging should be unique as well. The design on the ring boxes is very unique. Which is perfect if you are giving the ring as a gift. When your man opens the gift bag or unwraps the box and sees the cool J.R. YATES ring box, that moment will be a memorable one. Every care has been taken to ensure that the entire experience will be treasured. From the packaging to the finely crafted, uniquely styled masculine ring.

Exciting new mens rings from J.R. YATES

After much anticipation the new J.R. YATES ICONIC COLLECTION of mens wedding bands has been released! Designed for today's man with a bent towards masculinity, these mens rings are sure to turn heads. Designed by J.R. Yates himself, these rings are fashion forward. Constructed of the finest materials and precision craftsmanship each ring bears a lifetime guarantee. Currently there are seven rings in the collection with more to come soon.


J.R. Yates specializes in combining contemporary metals such as tungsten carbide with precious metals and other elements. The mens rings are all fairly wide, with a minimum width of 8mm, and substantial. No girly rings here! The designs are attention grabbing, yet not too fancy. The rings are solid with good heft. Each ring comes with custom designed premium packaging for gift giving. With all of these benefits, the rings are attractively priced from $169 to $249.


Guys, why wear a common run of the mill wedding band when you can be ICONIC? Currently offered at www.Titanium-Jewelry.com and a few select finer jewelry stores.

Would you consider wearing Black Diamonds?

This question came up a couple of months ago, "would shoppers consider wearing 'black' diamonds on their wedding bands?" Well, we polled some of our customers and found out that there was some interest in black diamonds. So a couple months later we added a few jewelry items that feature black diamonds. The result: Customers are voting YES, with their pocketbook!

Personally, I'm not a big fan of black diamonds, at least larger black diamonds. But as smaller accents used in jewelry they are pretty cool. In the past you would not have seen black diamonds used in jewelry, they were primarly used for industrial purposes. But with the increasing popularity of the color black in fashion, jewelry designers are now using these diamonds.

Black diamonds don't really have much sparkle. This is due to their dark color absorbs the incoming light. For a diamond to have good brilliance, light needs to come through the top of the stone, bounce off of the facets and return through the top of the diamond. But light gets absorbed by the dark black color. A second reason they don't sparkle much is that black diamonds tend to be highly included. The inclusions prohibit light return as well.

On the positive side black diamonds are extremely affordable. Textremely affordable while providing the color that people are craving.

For a guy who is really into black, I recommend the black titanium ring with black diamond. It's very modern and cool, and affordable.

To see more black diamond rings for men and women please visit our site, www.Titanium-Jewelry.com.

- J. R. Yates

Gold Prices Keep Rising

As of November 9, 2007 gold spot price is $833 per ounce. This is only a few dollars off it's all time high price of $850 from back in 1980. As bad as this is for consumers of fine gold jewelry, the experts predict much higher prices - and soon. Goldline.com, the leading website for precious metals information and purchasing, had an interesting statement.

In part this is what goldline.com reported, "Gold's strong gains are expected to continue through 2008. Deutsche Bank has forecast gold to rise a further 15% to 30% to reach $900 an ounce during 2008. Broker Barclays Capital sees the yellow metal likely reaching $1,000 per ounce in 2008." For more information please visit www.goldline.com.

The fact that gold prices are escalating at a rapid rate spells bad news for jewelry retailers and jewelry manufacturers. New inventory will be more expensive and will consumers pay higher prices in this tight economy? No one knows for sure. However, our website, Titanium-Jewelry.com, has seen a noticeable increase in traffic and orders for alternative metals jewelry. Increasing gold prices have not increased tungsten carbide or titanium fortunately.

I predict that as gold continues to climb we will see a further shifting to titanium rings, tungsten carbide rings and other alternative metals. That's my .02.

- J.R. Yates

New website design for Titanium-Jewelry.com

We are on the cusp of launching our exciting new site design for www.Titanium-Jewelry.com. Besides freshening up the look, there will be a ton of new interactive features. Shoppers have raised the bar on what they expect from leading online retailers. And as an online leader in modern mens wedding bands we have to be cutting edge.

The new site design is edgier, more engaging and just plain cool!

Hopefully by the end of October it will roll out.

-J.R. YATES