Vintage 1980s and 70s precious metals class rings.

Hello.
You guys used to really help me with my coins when i started collecting so now ive been collecting vintage old class rings and i need your guys help cause theres nothing online and no one knows anything about the composition nor what metals are used in thease old class rings.
There beautiful rings and apparently jostens and belfour used to patend and mix there own compositions of precious metals together to make thease rings.
And now they stoped so no one knows anything about them and no one can produce thease metal compositions anymore.
Ive even contacted jostens and belfour but they are just as confused as me and they have no clue what the metals in there old rings are all they no is they used to use gold palladium,platinum and silver to make some of them so i will post some pics and if you have any info on what metals they are or the composition of the metals then you are smarter then the companies that made thease rings and you should work there lol.
Please help.

 

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If you talked to the company and they had no idea, you're probably not going to get a ton of useful info here.

Take it to a pawn shop where they have a metal tester, and they can tell you what's in it.

If they are patented mixes, a search of patents might tell you what they are.

 

Mine is from '67 and it says 10K. Sorry my pix is not clearer.

 

Don't quote me on it, but

Precium is an alloy of Silver and Palladium ...

Argentus is also an alloy of Palladium and Silver ..

Balfour Polara Plus is either a palladium or Platinum and Silver alloy

Aur - I think it was Ara at one time which was based on gold


I remember back in High School they had weird alloys ("Lustrium" ring a bell?) as in the early/mid 1980s Gold peaked back then in the $300s.

But I'm allergic to Silver alloys (my finger swells immediately) so I can only get 18k gold jewelry. I had totally forgotten about this until a friend of mine made me a ring from a Walking Liberty Half a few years ago. Within seconds of putting it on my finger my finger started swelling. Luckily I was at the sink and put dish soap on it to get it off immediately.

 

Yeah, this is definitely a job for an XRF gun.

 

Who cares about the type of metal used? I graduated in 1972 and you think the 70's and the 80's are vintage? Since I graduated in the early seventies that means I was born in the fifties. Does that make me ancient?

 

Yup lol

 

Thanks for your help its so hard to find anything in thease rings at all.

 

Gold is always a beautiful ring.
Thanks for sharing.

 

She might even give ya a peck on the cheek and a hug!

 

I agree...just need to find one now.

 

Only problem is that they will charge you for the service. It's a very expensive piece of equipment so they need to make some kind of money to pay for it.

 

I believe those "names" were not Industry Standardized alloy names but simply "Marketing" names to catch the eye, mind and soul of a potential buyer. lol

 

it's FACEBOOK time !!
I'm sure your Alma Mater would find the owner fairly quickly via social media.

 

all of these are patented and trademarked alloys, most are high in silver like 75%-95% silver.
For Instance, Precium is supposed to be 74% silver, 25% Palladium, and 1% indium.

Argentus is going to be harder to find out, it's not being done anymore I don't think, and they were secretive, only claiming "wholly or in part, silver composition".

Same thing with Balfour, they are using Argentium now, not Polara.

Argentium silver is a brand of modern tarnish-resistant silver alloys, containing 93.5% or 96% silver and the remaining is the metalloid germanium.

these are all well know class ring companies, and branded alloys, it may take some digging, maybe a lot of digging, but you can find the alloy compositions.

I think AUR is Extreme AuRista, an alloy that contains gold, silver and palladium along with other metals, a Herff Jones TM'ed alloy.

Now can you trust the company and their metal suppliers to not cut corners on the alloy mix..... I wouldn't guarantee even if you do find what they had as their specific alloy mix, that it held true while they used it.

through the 1980s- almost 2000 Palladium was cheap, like $100 an oz. it's when the automakers switched from platinum to palladium the prices went up with the exception of the dip in the 2000s financial crisis where it dropped way down and automakers switched back to platinum.

Anywho.

 

Metallurgy is weird.