Why are some Roller Beads engraved and some aren’t?

You might have noticed that some of our Cherry Roller Bangles sport beautifully engraved beads and some have plain beads… and you might wonder why that it… so we thought we’d explain.

As our name suggests, Hiho Silver designs a lot of silver jewellery! A few years ago, we introduced a collection called ‘A Touch Of Gold’ where we applied yellow gold plating to some of our silver pieces. We used the gold plate to pick out elements of our designs, to create a two-tone look that was (and continues to be) on trend. These pieces proved really popular, and continue to be. Although gold plated pieces look gorgeous and (on our pieces) the gold plating is a good thickness to help preserve it, they are nowhere near the price of gold. We also were and are still able to offer a replating service if needed…

To develop the collection, we added rose gold plated designs too. Again, these picked out different elements of the silver designs, like the plated elements of the whip bangle, for example. As we did this, rose gold and rose gold plated pieces enjoyed a real surge in popularity. 

Then we designed the Cherry Roller Bangle. This was designed by us to pay homage to the Cherry Roller Bit, which combines copper and stainless steel to create the bit. We have nothing against copper or stainless steel, but for jewellery, we’re more silver and gold fans! The original Cherry Roller used sterling silver and each alternate bead featured a shiny rose gold plated finish. This original piece is still available and still hugely popular, but we have developed the range further… and the roller beads are one aspect of the range we have developed.

We started by adding CZ Roller Beads to our collection. These are sterling silver and encrusted with CZ crystals in a range of different colours. Then we added solid gold beads. These are completely solid 9ct gold and have Hiho engraved into them. They come in yellow or rose gold to suit everyone’s tastes. So, if you see ‘Hiho’ on a plain gold bead, it means it’s solid gold. If you don’t, it means it’s plated. The only exception is our 4 Star bead which is solid gold, but doesn’t have ‘Hiho’ as it has four diamonds instead!

If you want to ‘upgrade’ your Cherry Roller to include solid gold beads, you can just buy them online and send your bangle back to us and we’ll sort it for you (do email or call us though!), or pop along and see us at a show. You can also add solid gold beads to your Foxtail or charm bracelet too.

And don’t forget, it you have gold plated beads that need a little refreshing, we can replate them for nominal costs.

So there you go, that is why some of our beads are engraved and some aren’t!