Silver jewelry can have many numbers on the back indicating the amount of silver in the piece. Silver on its own is quite a soft metal, so other metal alloys are added to make the silver easier to work with in jewelry.
STERLING SILVER
The most commonly found silver in jewelry is sterling silver. Sterling silver is 925/1000 parts silver meaning that 75/1000 parts are metal alloys other than silver, usually copper. Sterling silver can be marked in the following ways:
925 or .925
"Ster" or "STERLING"
950 Silver
950/1000 parts silver. Slightly more silver content than sterling, it has 50/1000 parts metal alloy. Often found on vintage pieces as it is nonstandard.
850 or 800 Silver
Often found on vintage pieces. Both are nonstandard and have less silver content than sterling 925 or 950 silver.
850 is 850/1000 parts silver, 150/1000 parts metal alloy.
800 is 800/1000 parts silver, 200/1000 parts metal alloy.
Comments
Post a Comment