I love rose gold and so I was very intrigued when I saw the flood of ads for Tiffany’s new 175th anniversary limited edition commemorative Rubedo collection. Tiffany is quite coy about exactly what Rubedo is (they call it a new metal, but it’s really a new alloy; rubedo is Latin for “red”). The New York Times decided to find out, and after subjecting a piece to a spectrometer, they found out that Rubedo is 31 per cent gold, 55 per cent copper, with silver and a tiny bit of zinc. The pieces are not marked with the k for karat sign, but if they were, it would read 7.5.

I think the pieces are lovely but the prices are somewhat eyebrow raising considering the true metal content. My guess is that the typical Tiffany customer would balk at paying thousands of dollars for 7.5k gold.

If you like the look and the prices don’t deter you, the collection offers several interesting designs. Here, an interlocking Tiffany Rubedo and sterling silver bangle for USD $8500.