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
