Buying a piece of vermeil jewelry can be a reasonable investment if you know what you want. If care for well, a good vermeil piece will last for decades. See examples.
As you already know, there are different gold products in the market when it comes to jewelry. The biggest problem is that gold jewelry pieces are easy to replicate.
Unreliable sellers can take this advantage to sell you products that are not vermeil or even gold at all.
When shopping online, you want to look at the vendor feedback to establish their honesty. The seller must provide some form of guarantee when making a purchase.
Pricing is another important factor to consider. Basically, if the price of a piece is as low as that of sterling silver or gold-plated pieces, then that’s a red flag. You should run as fast as you can.
It also should not be as costly as solid gold pieces. Let the seller provide you all the details of the piece, including the size and thickness of the gold layer.
As I said before, modern vermeil pieces tend to look like real gold. You might need to test the metal to be sure about what you are buying.
Some jewel pieces will have a standard silver purity value on the gold surface. That denotes that the base of the piece is silver.