Silver and Caring for It
So, what colour is silver? Find out further down.
Silver Tarnishes
Whatever the natural colour of silver, we probably like to think of it as bright and shiny. But there's no getting round it: sterling silver will tarnish over time. Some people have especially corrosive skin (OK, it's their sweat, really) and can turn silver items black in minutes. They tend not to wear it.
Happily, most of us don't have that problem, but it will still tarnish. With amild level of tarnish, silver takes on a slighly yellow tinge. As it grow, the tarnish starts to look purple-ish (actually a rather attractive effect that it would be wonderfull to be able to freeze, if only we could) before turning blacker. Sometimes you will see the whole specturm of tarnish shades on a single piece.
Be warned that any piece with a frosted or brushed finish will tarnish quite quickly - certainly to the yellow-ish stage. It's not a desing or manufacturing fault. That's the way of it. All is not lost, though. Tarnish is easy to deal with.
Silver Care Tips
A quick dip in a tarnish-removing fluid is a very effective way to bring your silver back to brightness. It is quick and easy, and especialy effective for those matt-finished items. Goddards are probably the market leader.
But, do be careful: these dips are not always advisable if you have have porous semi-precious stones, shells or pearls.
After the dip (or instead of) use a special silver polishing cloth to bring back the reall sparkle. They work very well, and many are impregnated with an anti-tarnish agent to delay its return.
Prevention is better than cure, though. Tarnish is the
result of a reaction of the metals in the sterling silver with
chemicals in the environment. Eg:
- acid from your skin. Wipe the piece before you put it away.
- sulphur in the air. Keep it in an airtight box. A
piece of chalk in the box is rumoured to help.
- acids from paper. Don't wrap it in ordinary tissue paper;
make sure it is acid-free paper.
Tarnish is not the only problem, though. Silver is relatively soft (compared to platinum, say), so it does scratch relatively easily. One of the surest ways to dull the surface is to dump your jewellery into one big box. Do keep each item wrapped and/or in a separate box to avoid scratches.
Types of Silver
So,
what colour is silver? Well, actually, it is white (I suppose
that technically it is colourless, but that's the same thing in most
cases).
Don't believe me? The white on the inside of the ring opposite is actually a layer of unpolished fine silver.
It is a very delicate layer and will only stay like that because it is protected from rubbing by the shape of the bowl. Give it a good buffing and it would come up with the bright and reflective surface that we generally associate with silver.
Fine Silver
I described that white layer as "fine" silver. That is the term used for (almost) pure silver - anything with that is more than 99.9% pure. However, fine silver is generally too soft for use in jewellery. It might be used for making a bezel to set a stone in, but not much else. Generally silver is alloyed with other metals to make it more useable.
Sterling Silver
The alloy that will be most familiar to jewellery lovers is sterling silver, also known as 925 silver, because it is 92.5% silver (925 parts in 1000). The remaining 7.5% is usually mostly copper.
There are some variations such as Argentium and Brilliante silver that include other metals in the mix, but they are still 92.5% silver so are assayed as sterling silver.
Adding copper to silver makes it much harder than fine silver, but still relatively easy to work. why is why it is favoured by jewellers.
The downside is that the copper element tarnishes quite readily.
Britannia Silver
This is a 95.8% alloy of silver: harder than fine silver, but more workable than sterling. It is the alloy favoured by silversmiths because it can be formed more readily.
Other Silvers and Plating
There is a newly introduced 800 standard of silver (ie 80% silver) but most jewellers agree that it is 'nasty'. And, of course, there is also silver plate: plated items are made with base metals with a very fine layer of silver laid over, usually by electro-plating. Because silver is so soft, it won't be long before the plate wears off, unless it is really good quality (ie thick)
Sheffield Plate
The reason that there is an assay office in Sheffield is that, though probably being best known for steel, Sheffield was also a great centre for silverware and cutlery.
Although silver is relatively cheap (compared to gold, anyway) the amount need for a large silver bowl or tea-pot is still significant. It certainly would have been back in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the folks back then wanted a cheaper alternative.
The Sheffield metallurgists of the day came up with a process of melding thin sheets of silver onto a thicker base layer of copper to produce what became known as Sheffield Plate. Good quality stuff that lead the world for many years.
Like most things, it eventually got super-ceded by the cheaper (but not always better) process of electro-plating.
End of history lesson for today.