STERLING SILVER JEWELRY

Sterling silver is composed of 92.5% silver alloyed with copper to strengthen it. Silver has one of the highest reflectivities of any metal, giving it unmatched brilliance, making it perfect for jewelry designs. Silver also has extremely high electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. Despite all these wonderful properties silver is relatively abundant and easy to extract from ore, so it is, at the same time, relatively affordable making it ideal for jewelry that will appeal to a wide audience.

At various time in history silver was even more valued than gold and had a mystical allure to it, often being associated with the sea, moon and lunar goddesses. Hallmarking of silver places a stamped mark on the silver to identify its origin and purity and is often an important part of determining the value of a collectible piece.

There are other alloys of silver with a higher content of silver than sterling. Mexican and Brittania silver each have about 95% silver. Coin silver on the other hand typically has only 90% silver.

GOLD FILLED JEWELRY

Gold-filled metal consists of gold (usually 10, 12 or 14 karat/carat) permanently bonded to a base material (usually brass). To be labelled gold-filled, the metal must comprise at least 1/20 gold by weight. This is much thicker than gold plated metal - anywhere from 50 to 100,000 times thicker depending on the level of plating. This means that gold-filled jewellery is extremely durable compared to gold plated jewellery, and the gold will not rub off for many years or decades, even with daily wear. Gold-filled is, in my view, better in some ways than 'pure' gold - it is stronger (due to the base metal core), more durable, and of course more affordable; but the thick layer of gold still gives it the appearance of the real thing.