Do you want to get to the heart of the goldsmith's art? Today we will see together what the terms " empty " and " massive " mean in jewelry and what differences they entail.

Massive Jewel

A solid jewel is a full jewel and it is a jewel exactly as you imagine it: the pieces are made - pendants, links, wire - and assembled. It is the basic technique of jewelry and it works for most of the jewels you have , that you have seen around or that you wear every day.

Empty Jewels

Now imagine a nice big, flashy chain, made of large links and imagine having to buy a large quantity of it: the precious metal used is a lot, the weight increases and the price is not even mentioned. Moreover, a heavy jewel risks being uncomfortable.

It is to circumvent the price and weight (especially of gold jewelry) that the technique of hollow jewelry was invented , a technique that in the industry we simply call “the void”.

How does it work?

The elements that compose the jewel are made of iron inside and precious metal outside and before being finished they are treated with chemical substances that eliminate the iron (leaving the vacuum inside) and preserve the precious metal. The result is a light jewel, aesthetically unchanged compared to the solid version and with low costs.

Of course, the emptying process has its cost, but it is still less than that of a large quantity of precious metal.

An example of a solid jewel is our diamond necklace ,

An example of a blank jewel is the Chain set .

How can you tell if a piece of jewelry is hollow?

From its weight, if it is bulky but light, it is definitely empty . From its sound, if when you wear it you hear it clinking, it is empty. And finally from the incisions: each empty link has a cut that serves to let out the iron that was inside. These incisions are so thin and in aesthetically irrelevant places that it is not worth covering them.