It looks like silver and it shines like silver, but what is sterling silver? When you buy a piece of sterling silver jewelry, you may wonder if the piece you are buying is, in fact, sterling silver. Many pieces of silver jewelry may be silver-plated or contain a lesser amount of silver in their metallic makeup. Sterling silver is actually an alloy of silver consisting of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper or other metals. When you look at a piece of sterling silver jewelry, you will notice that there is always a 925 stamped into the silver somewhere on the piece of jewelry. This 925 is the mark that connotes that your jewelry is sterling silver, indicating the minimum millesimal fineness of 925. Consumers should always look for this mark when buying sterling silver jewelry, as it is required by law to accompany the maker’s trademark alongside the 925.
Sterling silver is mixed with other metals because 99.9% pure fine silver is too malleable to form long-lasting pieces of jewelry that stay true to their shape. Copper is the most common metal that, when mixed with fine silver, produces easy to deform sterling silver that does not break or losing toughness and preserves the high content of precious metal. The small amount of copper that is mixed with fine silver to create sterling silver does not affect the color of the silver as other metals do. Other metals such as germanium, platinum and zinc may replace the copper for different functions such as decreasing casting porosity, tarnish resistance and eliminating firescale.
The value of sterling silver is not affected by the contamination of the fine silver with copper or other metals. The price of sterling silver jewelry is based on the craftsmanship of the item, the amount of labor involved in its construction and the detailing in the design of the piece.
