A Complete Guide To Maintaining The Appearance Ofsterling Silver

What Is Sterling Silver

Fine silver (99.9% pure) like most precious metals, is easily bent and deformed and unsuitable for producing jewelry and other accessories. Earrings, rings, dogtags & other forms of silver jewelry cannot reasonably be moulded from pure silver in the absence of alloy metal impurities to strengthen its atomic structure. To exploit silver as a viable metal, it has to be alloyed with copper to increase its hardness. Due to the similar natural appearances of both metals, the alloy process can be completed without severely affecting the ductility and outward beauty of the silver. However, as the percentage purity of silver decreases within the alloy, the thorny issue of corrosion arises, giving rise to the need to find an efficient equilibrium balance between the percentage by mass content of Silver and the cheaper metal used in the alloy mix.

The solution, as discovered by the world's most brilliant chemists, is sterling silver: an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually Copper, Steel or Brass. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925 (ie: 92.5% purity). Given the high percentage purity of sterling silver remains high, sterling silver is the most suitable material for use in the manufacture of jewelry and high grade luxury cutlery used by royalty.

Chemically, silver is not very reactive-it does not react readily with oxygen or water at ordinary temperature, and so does not readily form the problematic silver oxide layer which appears as a dull, powdery white coating on the surface of pure silver. However, sterling silver is not a compound, and other metals in the alloy, usually copper, may react with atmospheric oxygen and appear as tarnish. The saving grace of sterling silver however, however, is that tarnish is easily reversible by polishing: a process which chemically dissolves and removes the exterior coat of CuO obscuring the bright sheen of the alloy. The one-step elimination of the tarnish has resulting in 925 sterling silver becoming the benchmark of consumer choice in jewelry craftsmanship.

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