Many people love silver, but pure silver is too soft to be used in jewelry. Pure silver will also tarnish very quickly requiring a lot of maintenance. Silver is usually available as 92.5% pure silver alloy referred to as sterling silver. The other 7.5 % metal alloy such as copper and nickel are added to improve strength, luster and reduce tarnishing.
Sterling silver jewelry is gorgeous, luxurious, valuable and also affordable. Silver jewelry pieces, such as bracelets, necklaces, rings and earrings, match almost any color ensemble and skin tone.
Most of the sterling silver jewelry has some sort of plating because silver itself turns yellow over time. There are several ways of finishing a piece of silver jewelry and they will affect the cost of the jewelry substantially.
High polished sterling silver jewelry has no plating on the jewelry at all and is particularly popular with engravable items or for people who are allergic to certain metals such as nickel. The jewelry is polished by machine without additional raw material cost.
Some silver jewelry has a black antique look to cater to certain consumers. These items are processed by putting the jewelry into chemical solution to oxide the silver before polishing and the pricing is similar to that of high polished ones.
Another common way of finishing sterling silver jewelry is nickel plating which most of the Italian silver jewelry sold in the market today is plated with. However, since nickel is not considered as precious metal, the price is usually not affected by the cost of plating.
A recent trend in plating silver is with Palladium to give you a tarnish free finish on jewelry without a nickel pre-plate. Palladium is in the platinum group metal, has a premium white color that will not fade and does not need rhodium plating. It is nickel free, tarnish resistant and more durable than white gold.
Interesting Fact:
Did you know Silver could actually save your life some day? Say you wore a silver necklace or ring and then got stuck in the wilderness, or a natural disaster knocked out the water system. However, if you found some water and soaked your jewelry in it, the silver would kill bacteria and make it safe to drink! It’s true — and even NASA uses Silver this way on the Space Shuttle.
