Educate me please - on sterling silver
- Thread starter Kellybag
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Great thread. I've been learning more and more about sterling silver. "Sterling" means many different things now-a-days. In the States sterling silver has to be stamped .925 but coming from other countries doesn't necessarily have to have the same stamp.
Different countries use different metal fillers as mentioned earlier. That 7.5% can be a number of different metals that can cause allergies.
The 'purest' silver is 99.9% pure silver. It's fantastic and I've been working more and more with it because it is so lovely. And it is also anti tarnish. The reason sterling tarnishes is because of the 'other' metals. It's not the silver that is tarnishing.
I'm guessing that's why Tiffany's sterling isn't tarnishing as badly...they probably have a better quality.
Anyway, I'm leaning more and more toward fine silver but good sterling silver is still wonderful.
Different countries use different metal fillers as mentioned earlier. That 7.5% can be a number of different metals that can cause allergies.
The 'purest' silver is 99.9% pure silver. It's fantastic and I've been working more and more with it because it is so lovely. And it is also anti tarnish. The reason sterling tarnishes is because of the 'other' metals. It's not the silver that is tarnishing.
I'm guessing that's why Tiffany's sterling isn't tarnishing as badly...they probably have a better quality.
Anyway, I'm leaning more and more toward fine silver but good sterling silver is still wonderful.
So, I just learned something new today...for handmade beads and chains, like Bali and Thai, in order to get to the 92.5% silver content, you actually have to start at a higher silver percentage because of some contamination is expected when working silver by hand.
I didn't realize that, but it would certainly explain why some silver is of better quality than others, since I doubt most manufacturers would be willing to use more silver to get to a final 92.5% content.
I didn't realize that, but it would certainly explain why some silver is of better quality than others, since I doubt most manufacturers would be willing to use more silver to get to a final 92.5% content.
I have an allergy to nickel, and everything I've bought that's stamped 926 has been just fine. Sometimes, metals can react to the Ph balance in your skin. I get green marks sometimes from 14 karat gold or even 18 karat gold. Every body is different.