Precious Metals

Although silver is classed as a precious metal, in reality it is a fraction of the value of gold and platinum. This is one factor that makes it very popular with the younger generations - it is affordable! This is also a factor that makes it less popular with more mature generations, since it has a low perceived value.

Silver jewelry alloys

The predominant metal used in silver jewelry manufacture is known as sterling silver. Similar to pure gold and platinum, pure silver is far too soft to use for jewelry manufacture, so it is again alloyed to improve its properties. As gold alloys have specific qualities known as karats, silver has a predominant quality known as "sterling". For an item to be marked as sterling, it must contain a minimum of 92.5% silver by weight. In most cases, the standard metal to complete the alloy is copper, although there are some other variations that have been recently introduced into the jewelry market.

A drawback with silver jewelry

While silver is the whitest of metals, has the highest reflectivity and is therefore the most lustrous - sterling silver is actually whiter than platinum - it has several drawbacks in the standard alloy form. The main problem with sterling silver is tarnish resistance, or rather the lack of it.