Metals have so many different names these days that it’s hard to keep up. What does it mean when the the lovely necklace you thought was sterling makes you break out? What exactly is “German Silver”? How about “Rolled Gold?” I hope this little primer will help you out.
Silver
Things that get called “silver” are very often not silver at all. If it says anything but “Sterling” or “Fine”, or is not marked “.925″ or “.999″, you may be in for a surprise.
German Silver, Nickel Silver, Alpaca, Alpacca, Mexican Silver, Brazilian Silver, Austrian Silver, etc.
- These may not be silver at all. They are often nickel, or nickel alloys. Loads of people are allergic to nickel, so if you find yourself breaking out like crazy, you may have a nickel piece.
Irish Silver
- I’ve never seen this sold anywhere but Ireland, and it appears to be mostly pewter.
Tibetan Silver
- May have silver in it, but likely does not and is mostly pot metal or nickel
Silver Plate
- A thin layer of silver bonded over a base metal — often nickel.
Sterling Silver
- An alloy that is 92.5% silver. In the USA, the other 7.5% must be copper, which is also true in Bali. In other countries, I don’t know that the alloy is specified. I do know that a lot of people complain of rashes when wearing sterling silver from India, and I have heard that the alloy often used there is nickel, but I cannot swear to it.
- In the 1980′s, particularly, bright sterling was the fad and to get that super-shiny look, the silver was “rhodium flashed”. The rhodium would prevent tarnishing, but it’s also allergenic, so it tended to make people break out. There’s less rhodium flashed silver around now than there used to be, but it’s still available, especially in big box stores.
Fine Silver
- Fine silver is 99.9% silver. It is softer than sterling, but also–oddly–more brittle. It won’t tarnish nearly as easily as sterling because what discolors in sterling is actually the copper. Fine silver is gaining in popularity due to the introduction of “Precious Metal Clay”, a product that combines microscopic bits of silver with a natural binder in a clay form. Once the clay dries, it can be fired in a kiln to burn away the binder, leaving you with a fine silver piece. This has allowed a great number of jewelry designers who cannot do traditional metalsmithing to work with metals.
UPDATE:
Other types of silver: Coin Silver is 90% silver. Sometimes, you’ll see silver measured by percentage, so a piece may be identified as Silver:80%, which is self-explanatory, but you may wonder “why would someone do that”? Well, in Europe, you’ll often see an 80% silver alloy.
Someone has told me recently that “Mexican Silver”, which usually means “nickel” as above, has another version, which is 95% silver. On that one, I cannot speak from experience, never having seen it. If so, I suggest asking someone who knows the particular piece in which you are interested to be sure what the silver content is.
Thai Silver: If it’s actually hand-crafted Karen Hill Tribe silver, the silver content is higher than sterling but lower than fine silver. There’s no exact measurement because it varies from piece to piece. These pieces are made with a higher quantity of silver because the copper alloy makes the silver harder to work with the hand tools used by the smiths.
Gold
- Pure gold is 24k (gold is measured in karats, unlike stones, which are measured in carats). 24k gold, however is far too soft to stand up to the wear and tear of jewelry. The highest you see in solid form in jewelry is 22k, while the vast majority is 14k. 10k gold, which was very popular in the past (lots of vintage stuff is 10k) seems to be on the rise again, perhaps because the price of gold is getting prohibitively high.
Gold Plate
- A thin layer of gold over a base metal, usually brass.
Rolled Gold, also known as Gold Filled
- You will sometimes see things marked 18kr or 18kgf. This does not mean that the items is 18k gold, it means that it is 18k gold filled or rolled. The terminology is confusing. Gold does not actually “fill” the item. Rather, like plating, the item in question is a base metal coated with gold. The difference between gold filled and gold plated is both the thickness of the gold (much heavier in gf) and the process by which it is attached–the heat and pressure bonding of gold-filled is much sturdier than plating.
- You will usually see gold-filled items marked “1/20 14kgf” or something similar which means that the 14k gold makes up 1/20 of the item by weight.
Vermeil
- Vermeil is a plating of gold over sterling silver. This creates a different look than either gold filled or gold plated and has the additional advantage of being precious metal throughout so that should the gold ever wear away, the item still has inherent value.
I am sure I missed something in all this, so if you have suggestions or questions, please let me know!
UPDATE:From John Madsen comes this useful addition:
“Hi Laura – Was pleased to see your notes about the different types of metal nomenclature – a recent addition to the roster of metal variants is bi-metallic sheet – consisting of a relatively thick layer of karat gold hot-rolled (or eudecticallt bonded) to sterling – it is useful for fabrication where the artist wants to iclude gold in the design prior to finishing processes, which is when plating would be applied.”
UPDATE II:This fascinating information comes from Abigail Miller:
“You might also add to this excellent summary the Japanese alloys shakudo and shibuichi. Shakudo is 4% gold in copper, and is used as a base for gold plating, and to get really deep black oxidized colors that contrast well with gold and silver. Shibuichi comes in two varieties, 15% silver in copper, and 25% copper in silver. Its polished color is a pale copper color. The 25% is useful for depletion gilding the surface when you heat and pickle it repeatedly until the surface is fine silver.”
