Each Mint & Birch necklace is cut by hand in our studio.  Each one starts out as a large sheet of extra thick, premium, high quality, 14 karat gold fill or solid sterling silver ethically sourced from reputable mills in North America. Each bar is cut lovingly by Jessica, the owner of the company. I personally file, drill and polish each one with my own hands from sheets. Gold fill is made by bonding two sheets of real gold onto a core, and is the best alternative to "solid" gold. It is NOT the same as plated jewelry. Gold fill is valuable, contains real gold and can even be recycled for gold content! Each piece is stamped using hand tools. Each Mint & Birch piece is finished and polished in our studio using professional tools and materials. We promise that our necklaces are worth the price!

Here at Mint & Birch, we only use ethically sourced, certified gold fill and solid sterling silver sourced from North American mills. Gold fill jewelry must contain a certain percentage of gold in order to be able to be legally called gold fill. This percentage is based on the weight of the piece. We use extra thick and heavy bars for your necklaces so that the weight and amount of real gold that you are getting per necklace is higher. We create our bars out of thicker than average sheets of high quality gold fill or sterling sheets sourced from North American mills. This ensures a luxurious, long lasting piece that you can treasure for years to come.

We do NOT use gold plated materials, but instead, we use gold fill and solid sterling silver. Gold fill is much more superior to gold plated, and is made by bonding layers of real gold into a base core. Gold plated, which we do NOT use, is simply a microscopic dip into metallic colouring or gold alloy, which is often not real gold, or cannot be certified as real gold because gold plated items are usually sourced overseas. Often, gold plated materials simply refers to the metallic colour in which it has been dipped in, and as such,  especially without certification, could contain heavy toxic metals such as cadmium or lead. Mint & Birch does NOT sell gold plated items. Our pieces are free of cadmium, lead and nickel and do not contain any toxic metals. We use only gold fill or solid sterling silver, as we strive to source the best raw materials in the industry! Our gold fill raw materials are ethically sourced from mills within North America, and we only buy raw materials that can be certified as containing real 14 karat gold, safe to wear, free of toxic metals and ethically sourced. 

Most importantly, the magic is the process in which we make our bars. We do not use a tumbler, in which many, many pieces can be polished and rough edges removed with little effort by putting multiple pendants into a rotating canister with small steel parts or abrasive compounds such as silicone carbide grit, or ceramic. Tumbling does not always remove all of the rough edges, but simply smoothes them down. Furthermore, tumbling can cause micro scratches and wear down the gold in gold filled pieces, leading to tarnish. We do NOT do this. Instead, we meticulously use hand tools to individually finish each bar. Using hand tools allows us to have a greater degree of control and precision over the piece to ensure that edges are beautifully smooth and that no damage occurs when finishing the piece into shiny necklaces! We have created a unique process of finishing your pieces without a tumbler, but with multiple hand tools, ensuring that quality is delivered. We believe in good old-fashioned hard work done with elbow and grease! Your bar necklace will not flake or tarnish as each one is treated with care individually and not mass manufactured.

The combination of high quality materials we work hard to source, and our unique process of finishing the bars results in necklaces that will last for years to come. We strive to deliver the very best! Mint & Birch also works hard to create unique designs to hand stamp your necklaces with. We even offer custom engraving! In fact, some of our designs are even created specifically for us and cannot be found elsewhere!