BRIEF HISTORY OF STERLING SILVER

Silver is a metal found in the earth’s crust. For many centuries, Silver ore has been mined, extracted and refined to give us the beautiful silver metal we’ve all come to know and love.

Sterling Silver is an alloy of other metals and pure Silver

Sterling Silver Alloy

Pure Silver, while very beautiful, is very challenging for metalsmiths to work with. Additionally, it is very soft which doesn’t make it practical for everyday wear.

To counteract this challenge and harden the Silver so that it becomes stronger, pure Silver is often mixed with other metals such as Copper or Nickel or some other metal. This mixture is called an ALLOY.

An alloy, pretty much, is a mixture of two or more different types of metals which have been heated to their liquid form and then poured together to form a new material which displays properties from each metal used. In 925 Sterling Silver, there is 92.5% Pure Silver, and 7.5% Copper or Nickel.

Although no one knows for certain when the first Sterling Silver was created, we do have coins dating way back to 1083 C.E. Sterling Silver has been fashioned into many items such as utensils, perfume bottles, and even medical equipment but, jewelry creation has always been a major use of the alloy.

So, next time you enjoy your beautiful piece of 925 Sterling Silver jewelry, why not reminisce about where this precious material came from?!

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