What is the difference between gold plated & gold overlay? What are the minuses to buying either vs real gold?

Answer 1

The links below will answer your first question,
possibly well beyond anyone's comprehension! ;)
(click on the orange-ish words on the first link's page for further info)

Your second question is more difficult to answer, as it involves personal preferences: Would you rather have a great looking piece of jewelry that is thinly gold-plated but is very expensive, or a hunk of junk made of solid gold but is relatively cheap? The second link gives some pricing info, near the bottom of that page.

Please keep in mind that both links are from retailers,
but I read both pages and their info seems to be legit
without obvious bias.


P.S. Thank you for asking a complete and unique question, without a single spelling or grammatical error (I'll overlook the arguably superfluous "d" in "plated"!). A rarity, indeed on this website! Keep up the good work! :)

Answer 2

I'm not sure exactly what the difference is between the two, however, with either one, eventually the overlay or plating will wear away and the jewelry will take on the color of what ever metal is underneath.