CS jewelry made with iron, bronze, copper, aluminium, brass

[demantoidz]

What intrigues me about Hemmerle's jewelry, other than their designs, is their choice of metals. Iron, bronze, copper, aluminium, brass (but gold is used on areas that touch the skin).
Posting a few screenshots as examples, there is more on their website/IG.

Would you wear jewelry made of unconventional metals or are you turned off by the idea?
Has anyone had jewelry made of these metals?
Pros and cons?
Why don't more jewelers use them considering how expensive gold and platinum are? (are they practical reasons, like being difficult to work with, or more emotional reasons, like status?)

Their designs may not be for everyone.

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Hemmerle

Hemmerle is a fourth generation family run house at the vanguard of jewellery design in Germany. Each handcrafted one of a kind jewel conceived is a unique design and as original as a work of art.

hemmerle.com

 

[T L]

Copper is a very beautiful metal, but the problem is that it’s very soft and it also tarnishes, or gets a patina. I think the use of these various coppery metals for semi precious and inexpensive stones is fine. I would never use them to set Diamonds or other expensive gems. As for aluminum, not the most durable metal, I think stainless steel or titanium is a better choice for jewelry wear.

 

[PreRaphaelite]

I love the work they do - it's out of my league but so inspiring.

 

[queenshaboo]

Pros: cheaper (though not apparently for this particular designer)
makes for lighter jewelry (esp nice for earrings)
Cons: green marks on skin (some more than others)
constant tarnishing / oxidization
bad for environment (due to brass and bronze alloys not being able to be scrapped unless on industrial scale)
hard to rework (some jewelers won't do it)
pretty much zero resellable value

Tarnishing: I stopped wearing brass and copper for this reason though I still have a couple of pairs of white bronze earrings that I'm partial to. Bronze isn't so bad on the tarnishing front but my brass and copper bracelets, though I love them, I can't wear them when traveling because I don't have ready access to lemon juice/ vinegar + salt or brasso and I don't want to keep buying expensive jewelry cleaning cloths. Gold fill is a better option if affordability is an issue though that can't be reworked either. Have started seeing gemstone jewelry on Etsy with gold filled wire bezels and wonder how hard it was for the metalsmiths to do that, once the gold flakes off with time the bezel is pretty much useless...

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

i just wanted to ask
and didnt want to start a new thread
if i have a coper braclete is it ok to wear it on a silver chain or will i hurt the silver ?
i mean copper chains are cheap but that doesnt change the fact i dont have one right now and want to wear my new pendent now !
its tiger eye wire wrapped in coper with a large copper bail

 

[Avondale]

i just wanted to ask
and didnt want to start a new thread
if i have a coper braclete is it ok to wear it on a silver chain or will i hurt the silver ?
i mean copper chains are cheap but that doesnt change the fact i dont have one right now and want to wear my new pendent now !
its tiger eye wire wrapped in coper with a large copper bail

This got me curious so I googled. Apparently copper and sterling silver have about the same hardness of 3. Given that there's no significant disparity between the two, I'd guess nothing bad will happen if you wore your pendant with a silver chain for a bit, until you got a matching copper one.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

This got me curious so I googled. Apparently copper and sterling silver have about the same hardness of 3. Given that there's no significant disparity between the two, I'd guess nothing bad will happen if you wore your pendant with a silver chain for a bit, until you got a matching copper one.

thank you for the reply
much appreated