History of silver jewellery and what it is.

what is silver?

It is classified as a chemical element. It is a grayish, highly valuable radiant metal. Aside from its known aesthetic properties it is also the most electrically conductive of all known metals. Silver is found in Group Ib Period 5 of the periodic table, between Gold and copper. Its chemical and physical attributes are between these two metals which is why it can easily be melted and mixed with them.

How does silver differ from Platinum?

• Platinum is harder
• Platinum can be corroded faster with alkalis
• Platinum is rarer and therefore considerably more expensive
• It has a much higher melting point than silver and therefore slightly different techniques have to be employed when making jewellery from Platinum.
• Platinum is duller and a lot harder to keep polished.

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The silver jewellery conference Limerick 2006.

For more information on our silver jewellery merchandise

The malleability of Silver

The malleability of Silver has enabled it to be hand-crafted or machined throughout the ages into beautiful works of art and jewellery. An example is The fine detail of this stunning bowl detailing the history of Cambodia.

The Chemical Composition of Silver jewellery

We stock a wide range of silver jewellery including rings, bangles, necklaces, ear-rings and lockets. In addition our plymouth shops exhibit a large variety of silver pendants, crosses, cuff-links and bracelets.

The silver we use for our jewellery is composed of the purest silver combined with a small amount of copper to give it extra strength. The proportion of silver to copper is 92.5% to 7.5% copper. Some items, particularly the gemstone set rings are coated with a layer of rhodium which gives the silver an extra shine reducing the amount of polishing. There are no other metals involved except for very small amounts of iron solder used for welding joints on the larger pieces. No zinc, nickel or other allergy sensitive metals are used.

More about silver jewellery

The major difficulties in making silver jewellery are porosity and fire scale. Porosity is essentially where small bubbles of air get trapped in the cooling process whilst Fire scale (or fire stain) is a red stain that becomes visible on mixtures of copper and silver. Above certain temperatures, oxygen reacts with the copper to form cuprous oxide and then cupric oxide. To overcome these difficulties precision temperature controls are used throughout the manufacturing process.

The obvious method of identifying an item of jewellery or ornament is by its markings, stamp or hallmark. The silver bowl is marked by its maker which often also indicates the purity of the metal used as well as its age.

The costume jewelry is made from real gemstones. It can be worn as a stand-alone feature or with any item from our range of silver jewellery.

We also stock watches and body jewellery. The body jewellery includes banana bars and navel piercing.

Visit our shops in Plymouth, UK to see our collection of jewellery. For detailed information on how to look after silver jewelery see our section on silver-care.

History