A new silver alloy - Argentium!

I know it's been a long time since I've posted on here and hope that I can get more useful information up here soon. In the meantime, I wanted to write a quick update to my article on the various types of silver.

Argentium is a name that is new to me but has been available on the market for the last several years. It's starting to grow in popularity now which is how it came to my attention and why I felt I should share an update since my previous article is incomplete without it.

Argentium is sometimes known as 935 Silver. As you may have learned in my first article, that means the alloy is 93.5% silver. It is being offered as a replacement for the more common and popular form of silver, Sterling, or 925, Silver.

Argentium is a more pure product than 925 Sterling and is able to do so without compromising the qualities that have made Sterling so popular, primarily the hardness and durability. Argentium is just as hard and durable as Sterling but has a higher resistance to tarnish and is supposedly a bit easier to work with in terms of ductility and firescale.

There is another type of Argentium, 960 Silver, which is 96% pure with similar properties but a higher melting point. It seems to be less common among the dealers and craftsmen that we work with than Argentium 935 Silver which is still far less common than Sterling 925 Silver.

Argentium incorporates germanium, a more rare element than was used back in the days when Sterling 925 Silver was developed. Essentially the traditional formula for Sterling was modified to replace some of the copper with germanium resulting in what we now call Argentium. Due to the change in chemical formula it requires all new processes and products to use in the shop, including type of solder, firing plans, and others. We have not incorporated Argentium into any of our products yet but expect that we will as it becomes a bit more common.

Argentium Silver is patented and trademarked by Argentium Silver Company, UK.

As always, please contact us via email with any additional information, feedback, or questions that we can help with.

The Difference Between Fine, Sterling, and Other Types of Silver

The blog is resurrected! I finally have gotten around to writing a long-overdue explanation of the various different grades of silver used in jewelry making. I decided there was just too much information for a facebook post so decided to put it here. I am far from an expert in this area but have learned an awful lot over the last year as I have gotten more involved with Stephanie's jewelry making.

I decided not to go into stamps and hallmarks indicating silver quality as we don't stamp our pieces and it seems that hallmarking varies widely depending upon age and country of origin.

I'll list the various qualities of silver found in jewelry in descending order. Feel free to email me any questions and I'll do my best to find you some answers. If the Internet doesn't help we are lucky to have a couple of friends that are experts in this area.

Fine Silver, or .999 Silver - this is the grade of silver Stephanie uses for her hand carved and cast pieces. Fine silver is 99.9% pure. The other .1% is made up of various trace elements that are so difficult, expensive, and pointless to remove that Fine Silver is also considered to be and referred to as "Pure Silver". This is the grade of silver that is traded on the commodity markets as bullion, typically in the form of bars or coins. Some investment-grade coins are not fine silver and generally clearly marked as such.

Silver is a very non-reactive material so is not prone to tarnishing and VERY rarely causes any allergic reaction, hence is considered hypoallergenic. Fine Silver will not tarnish from oxygen or water but will react with sulfur in the air to tarnish a bit. Unfortunately this sulfur is air pollution and a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels. Interesting sidebar - during the Industrial Revolution people were shocked to discover how much more quickly their silver jewelry would tarnish. It took a while for them to figure out that it was being caused by all of the pollutants the new factories were releasing into the air. At that time most silver jewelry was only 80% pure so the effect of the industrial expansion was quick and dramatic. The pollutants that tarnish fine silver are the same ones that cause acid rain.

Fortunately fine silver is very easy to clean if it does tarnish. Most common are the jewelers cloths that are impregnated with a bit of polish that will take off any tarnish with a quick wipe. Heirloom pieces are often only very lightly polished as the patina is valued to help show it's age. Natural patina is simply tarnish, though in the studio we induce patina with various types of chemicals

Britannia Silver, or .985 Silver - Britannia silver is an alloy consisting of 98.54% silver and the rest copper. This was originally developed to replace Sterling silver as a wrought plate material in Great Britain in 1697. That only lasted for about 25 years. Today Great Britain still makes some investment-grade coins known as "Britains" that are made of Britannia Silver, otherwise it is very rare to come across. I don't know of it ever being used in jewelry, at least not in the last 200 years or so.

Mexican Silver - Mexican silver is a 95% pure alloy with 5% copper. For a brief time Mexican silver was produced 98% pure but the majority of Mexican silver jewelry is 95% pure. If you've ever bought silver jewelry in Mexico you probably noticed that it seems a bit softer and more malleable than American silver jewelry. That's because it is more pure than the average sterling silver pieces sold here.

91 zolotnik Russian silver - in a break from the normal naming convention, this silver is 94.7% pure and was used in Russian coins for centuries. I doubt that it is still in use other than for collectible or investment-grade coins. The name is based upon the system the Russians used to weigh coins (zolotniks) rather than the purity.

Sterling Silver, or .925 Silver - Sterling silver is by far the most common form of silver used in jewelry. It is also the form of silver used in silver cutlery, tea services, baby rattles, hair brushes,  and most other household silver goodies. It is an alloy of 92.5% silver with another base metal, most typically copper. Sterling silver is a bit harder than fine silver which makes it more attractive for applications like cutlery but the downside is that it is MUCH more prone to tarnishing due to the copper content. Other base metals are sometimes used to adjust the physical properties of the finished product but the vast majority of sterling silver in jewelry is alloyed with copper. Sterling silver will tarnish from water, oxygen, and especially table salt (sodium chloride).

The addition of copper or other materials also increases the likelihood of an allergic reaction to jewelry, thus sterling silver is not considered hypoallergenic. Nickel is the material that is sometimes added that causes the majority of allergic reactions. For this reason you will see many of our items with sterling components listed as "Nickel Free".  All things considered, the main reason sterling silver is used over fine silver is because it's cheaper. Sometimes sterling silver will be plated with fine silver to give it a more shiny finish.

88 zolotnik Russian silver - This silver is 91.6% pure with the same story as the 91 zolotnik Russian silver listed above.

900 Silver, or Coin Silver - This is an alloy that is 90% silver. This is the lowest amount of silver that can be included for a piece to be legally marketed as "Silver" in the United States.  90% pure used to be the standard for American silver coins so the name "Coin Silver" was given to jewelry that was made from melting down metal coins.

84 zolotnik Russian silver  - This silver is 87.5% pure with the same story as the other Russian zolotnik silvers listed above.

830 European Silver, or Scandinavian Silver - This is an alloy that is 83% silver (starting to catch on to the nomenclature?).

800 European Silver, or German Silver, or Egyptian Silver - This is an alloy that is 80% pure silver. It was widely used for silver jewelry throughout Europe prior to the move to sterling silver and can still be found in some collector heirloom pieces.

Silver Filled - I'm not sure why this is called silver filled because the silver is on the outside and the filling is base metal (I'm sure Stephanie knows). Silver filled products are at least 20% silver and are not an alloy. The silver is typically pure or sterling and is bonded to the outside of the base metal. It is made up of many thin layers of silver electrolytically bonded together, making a product that is cheaper than pure silver, much more durable than plated silver, and with the hypoallergenic properties and appearance of the bonded surface material.

Silver Plated - this is the bottom of the silver jewelry food chain. We've all encountered it before. We buy a nice looking piece of silver jewelry that seems amazingly cheap only to wear it a few times and have it look horrible. When we try to clean the tarnish off we discover that the silver plating is actually gone, either from being worn away or dissolved in the tarnishing process. Silver plated items have only one very thin layer of silver plated over a base metal. The durability level is very low and it does not carry the hypoallergenic properties of finer grades of silver. Typically the plating is .15 - .25 mils thick. A mil is one one-thousandth of an inch. The typical human hair is about 3 mils thick so you can see why silver plating doesn't last long - at it's very thickest it is only a twelfth of the thickness of a human hair.

So there is my summary of the types of silver you may encounter in the jewelry world. Obviously the reason I wrote the article is to draw attention to the fact that our products are all made of the highest available grades of silver, typically fine silver for our handmade pendants, earrings, and other components and Nickel Free sterling for components we purchase like ear wires. We also use silver-filled wire for some of our work but always steer clear of plated materials of any sort.

Thanks to the many uncited Internet sources that I used to help develop this article. I went into this thinking that there are three or four grades of silver and was shocked to learn this much. I suspect there are even more grades out there, especially if you look at industrial applications, but I think this covers most of what you'll see in jewelry, coins, and bullion.

Of course this article copyright is held by Ceres Studios and we reserve all rights regarding use or reproduction. Please email us if you'd like to use it on your site or blog and with the appropriate link and attribution we will probably be happy to share.

Jeff

Friday morning update

Today is my first official Friday off since I switched to part time at my day job, so I thought I'd kick off the day with a blog post.

Latest updates - Stephanie has, in her words, "wood fever" and I have some sort of curse that hopefully will wear off soon.

Steph's wood fever - in my last post I featured a photo of an upcoming wooden pendant that Stephanie is working on. We've got another that is amazing and probably ready to post (picture below). She's still working on some silver projects but has been spending a lot of time on these awesome, exotic wood pieces. Recently we have been competing for time on the equipment in the wood shop, but my curse has freed up a lot of machine time for Steph.

Jeff's curse - I've had one of those weeks when things just don't seem to be going the right away. Everything is a few degrees more difficult than it should be, culminating in a fairly serious run in between my left index finger and the blade from a biscuit joiner that was spinning at about 11,000 RPM. That hurt - a lot - and still does. It's been 36 hours since the injury and I haven't seen a doctor under strong protest by Steph. I'll spare the gory details but suffice it to say that it appears the finger will survive, albeit looking a bit different than it has in the past. I'm fairly handy with first aid and didn't see any flesh that could be stitched up to close the wound, so I took care of it myself. There's no signs on infection and I *think* the wound is trying to close, but if it starts to show infection or looks bad at the next dressing change then I'll be off to the doctor for what I'm sure will be an excruciating exam and condescending reprimands. Pictures of the injury are available on request, but are definitely not for the weak of heart. Think finger meets bloody hamburger . . .

I also fell through the bedroom ceiling from the attic, sanded down the tip of my right thumb until it bled, and several other silly mishaps. This has all been in the last five days. The finger hurts real badly and isn't really usable since I've splinted it to it's neighbor to try and keep the flesh from moving around while it heals. That means I'm typing with only eight fingers, so bear with me.

I'll still got plenty to work on during recovery - I've got a set of runes cut and ready to burn, a few rune pendants roughed out and ready for design, and my latest great product idea - tumbled stones. Stay tuned for more on the tumbled stone front.

Steph has several pieces close to ready for sale plus a very nice pair of art nouveau earrings that she listed since my last entry. If you remember the amazing silver leaf and stick clasp that she made for a bracelet we sold a few weeks ago then you'll like one of the new projects she's working on.

We still need more facebook likes, so please encourage your friends to like our page. Every time that happens all of the new "liker's" friends see our link and bring us lots of traffic. You don't have to endorse us, just liking us is plenty. Even if no one buys anything more clicks raise us up in search results, both internal at Etsy and via external search engines.

I'm also ready to start looking to alternate distribution channels, preferrably not eBay, so if you have any ideas we'd love to hear them. I've heard a lot about artfire.com but haven't checked it out yet, so any opinions of that site are welcomed.

Here's some cruddy phone cam eye candy for today. Better shots will come with final listings.

This is Steph's sweet new wooden necklace that may be listed as soon as today. The wood is amazing and the polish she put on it is perhaps the best to come out of our wood shop yet.

Here's a set of wooden Futhark runes that I have in development. The runes are just penciled on there and hopefully will be burned in soon.

This is a prototype rune necklace we made. I don't know if this one will make it for sale as we have much nicer pieces of wood, this was just practice. We also are likely to accessorize it a bit with a bead or two or perhaps some interesting knotwork in the cord. Since this isn't likely to get listed, email us if you are interested in it - we'll make you a good deal and customize the necklace however you'd like.

And to wrap things up, a brief documentary of my days of misfortune. First is a picture of my aching finger, next is the view from my bedroom after my attic/ceiling mishap.

Thanks for reading, subscribe to our blog, share our links with everyone you know, and as they say in the open air markets in Mexico - "Hey, come buy my junk!"

Respectfully submitted, Jeff.

The Inaugural Post!

There's big developments in the world of Ceres Studios, so I figured it was about time to actually start writing for the blog.

Effective March 1, I (Jeff) am going part time at my day job! I'm officially calling it "semi-retirement" though I very well may go back to full time in the future at some point. Back in December when we were planning to launch the store I decided I really didn't need to spend as much time working in the corporate world as I do. I really wanted more time to work on projects for Ceres Studios and just live life. I have a very cool boss and mentioned to him that if the opportunity came up I'd love to be working part time. Lo and behold, the opportunity has come up and it's mutually beneficial. We're a little over staffed in my department right now, so cutting me to part time helped everyone.

I tend to write like I speak - way too much - so I'm going to try to keep my posts here brief. I'm very excited to have more time on my hands as I've got a long list of new products I'd like to develop in the wood shop and would really love to share a little more insight on what we're working on and some of the comedy of errors that goes on in the process of actually making something someone might buy.

One quick update - I've added an app to our Facebook page that will allow customers to view and purchase any item in our shop right from within Facebook. Very cool stuff.

If you haven't liked us on Facebook yet, please do so unless you absolutely hate us. Every time we get one new "like" it seems like we get a new customer. It's a great way for us to reach a lot of people quickly, and you can always block our updates from your wall if you don't want to see them.

Upcoming projects:

  - Rosewood hair stick with swarovski crystal (hurry up Stephanie!)

  - Marble cheese boards in wooden frames

  - Wooden pipe tampers within inlaid stone accents

  - Exotic wooden pendant jewelry - you'll have to see it to appreciate them

Stephanie also has a three day class on mokume-gane coming up soon. It's a metalsmithing technique to blend different metals and enamels in one piece based upon the ancient tradition of folding steel in Japanese samurai swords. I expect we'll see some neat stuff come from there, hopefully not too expensive.

A little phone cam eye candy to wrap up:

  - a redwood burl pen I made for Stephanie today, satin nickel hardware

  - a wooden pendant Stephanie is working on

  - one of many piles of rocks Steph has all over our house

More updates to come soon!

- Jeff