Close-up of a sterling silver ring showing the 925 hallmark stamp

Oct 20, 2026

How to Tell If Jewelry Is Good Quality When Buying Online

You can judge most of it from the listing. Look for a metal number rather than a colour word, find out which of the four kinds of gold it is, check whether nickel is mentioned at all, and see whether the stone is described as natural, treated or lab-created. If a page won’t answer those, that is itself an answer.

Most jewelry looks the same in a photograph. A $14 ring and a $340 one are both shot on white, lit from the same angle, and described as timeless.

Everything you can actually check is in the words next to the picture. And online, the useful skill is noticing what a listing doesn’t say.

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What does 925 mean on jewelry?

925 means sterling silver, 92.5% pure. 999 means fine silver, 99.9%. 750 or 18K means gold that is 75% pure.

These are specific claims with legal meaning behind them. The number is the whole point.

“Silver tone,” “gold finish,” “silver coloured” and plain “silver” with no number are not claims about metal at all. They are claims about colour.

If a listing won’t give you a number, there usually isn’t one worth giving.

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Silvaria Silver Obsidian Coffin Necklace

$104.00

A silver pendant necklace featuring a faceted, coffin-shaped iridescent gemstone with blue and green flashes, set in a silver filigree bail on a dark textured background.

Silvaria Moonstone Coffin Necklace

$104.00

Silvaria Labradorite Coffin Necklace

$104.00

Silvaria Black Onyx Coffin Necklace

$104.00

Is gold plated jewelry real gold?

Technically, yes, and practically it depends enormously on which of four different things you are buying. They all use the word gold.

Gold plated. A layer typically 0.175 to 0.5 microns, usually over brass. There is no legal minimum thickness. It wears through at the points that rub.

Gold vermeil. The FTC requires three things and a piece must meet all of them: at least 10K gold, a layer at least 2.5 microns thick, and a base of sterling silver. Fail one and it cannot legally be called vermeil.

Gold filled. The gold must be at least 5% of the item’s total weight. Considerably thicker than plating, and it lasts accordingly.

Solid gold. Gold throughout, at whatever karat is stated.

A listing that says “gold” and will not tell you which of these four it is has told you which of these four it is.

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Square-cut peridot ring in 18K gold over sterling silver

Peridot Everyday Gold Ring

$280.00

Square-cut london blue topaz ring in 18K gold over sterling silver

London Blue Topaz Everyday Gold Ring

$425.00

Square-cut amethyst ring in 18K gold over sterling silver

Moonstone Everyday Gold Ring

$225.00

Square-cut labradorite ring in 18K gold over sterling silver

Labradorite Everyday Gold Ring

$245.00

What does nickel free actually mean?

Nickel is cheap, it hardens alloys, and it is the most common cause of the reaction people call a metal allergy. It is in a great deal of inexpensive jewelry.

“Nickel free” is a specific claim about a specific metal. Look for those words.

“Hypoallergenic” is not. Anyone can print it. It has no agreed standard behind it in jewelry, and it tells you what a brand hopes rather than what they have done.

Natural, treated and lab-created are three different things

They get sold with the same vocabulary and they are not the same.

Natural means it came out of the ground and was cut.

Treated means something was done to it afterward. Heat, irradiation, stabilisation, dye. This is extremely common and it is not a scandal. Most blue topaz on the market is irradiated. Much citrine is heat treated. Turquoise is frequently stabilised, because untreated turquoise is soft enough to damage.

Lab-created means it was grown rather than mined. Chemically identical in many cases, considerably cheaper, and perfectly legitimate when it is disclosed.

The problem is never treatment. The problem is silence about it. A brand that tells you a stone is heat treated is more trustworthy than one that says nothing at all, because the one saying nothing is either not disclosing or does not know.

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Peridot Everyday Gold Ring

$280.00

Square-cut labradorite pendant in 18K gold over sterling silver

Labradorite Everyday Gold Pendant

$155.00

Rough-cut amethyst and herkimer diamond bracelet in sterling silver

Amethyst w/Herkimer Diamond Sterling Silver 2-Stone Bracelet

$228.00

Trillion-cut moonstone pendant in 18K gold over sterling silver

Moonstone Everyday Gold Pendant

$125.00

What does “certified” mean on a jewelry listing?

Certified by whom.

A real certification names the body that issued it. If a page says certified and will not say certified by whom, the word is decoration.

Worth knowing: certification is usually about identifying and grading the stone. It is not a promise that nothing was done to it. Those are two separate questions and you can ask both.

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Peridot Everyday Gold Ring

$280.00

Labradorite Everyday Gold Pendant

$155.00

Amethyst w/Herkimer Diamond Sterling Silver 2-Stone Bracelet

$228.00

Oval-cut black rutile ring in sterling silver

Black Rutile Sterling Silver Oval Hammered Finish Ring

$100.00

What the returns and care pages tell you

Nobody reads these and they are the most honest pages on any jewelry website.

Care instructions tell you what a brand expects of the piece. Specific advice, naming which cleaners are safe and which are not, means someone has thought about the piece lasting. No care page at all means nobody expects to be asked.

The returns window tells you how confident they are. A short window on a considered purchase is a brand that would rather you kept something you are unsure about.

The shipping page should agree with every other page on the site. Where it contradicts the product pages on packaging or thresholds, that is a sign of a site nobody is maintaining closely, which is worth knowing before you spend.

Six things, then. The metal as a number. Which kind of gold. Whether there is nickel. Whether the stone is natural, treated or grown. Who certified it, if anyone says certified. And what it looks like on a person.

Most of that is answerable in under a minute from a page you are already looking at. And where a page cannot answer it, that is an answer.

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