Making this ring was illegal in 1942

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]If I made you a platinum ring in 1942, I could have been put in jail. During World War platinum basically got drafted. Before the war, platinum was the standard for fine white jewelry.

[00:00:09]It's naturally white, incredibly dense, strong, and perfect for diamond settings. If you wanted a clean white metal, platinum was top shelf. But in 1942, it was classified as a strategic war material. The government banned it from being used for civilian jewelry. So the industry had a problem. People still wanted white metal rings, but they couldn't use platinum. And modern alloys like Argentium silver hadn't even been invented yet. So the trade leaned into a substitute, white gold. The problem with white gold is that gold isn't white.

[00:00:36]Gold is yellow. To make white gold, you have to fight the natural color of gold by alloying it with bleaching agents like nickel, palladium, or zinc. Nickel makes it harder and whiter, but it often irritates the skin. Palladium on the other hand creates a premium warm gray-white alloy. And this is where the modern jewelry industry ruins it. Even after all that brilliant chemistry, [music] a well-engineered white gold isn't really platinum white. It has its own unique warm undertone. But instead of appreciating for what it actually is, the industry started coating it in rhodium to fake the look of platinum.

[00:01:04]It's a microscopic plating that wears off and looks awful after just months.

[00:01:08]White gold might have gained traction as a wartime workaround, but it eventually evolved into a really nice engineered alloy in its own right. We just have to stop hiding it under cheap plating. Let white gold look like white gold.