Silver is a precious metal that has been utilized to make jewelry and other items. Pure silver is not feasible to be made into jewelry or other items since it’s too soft making it less durable. Silver is mixed with other metals to harden it and make it wearable and durable. The sterling silver is a known mixture of silver and one more metal.
The most frequent metal employed to add to pure silver is copper. Aside from copper, individuals also use germanium, zinc and platinum. The other metals are employed instead of copper for some factors such as decreased effect of tarnishing; lessen firescale and other disadvantages of using copper. Sterling silver jewelry cannot be marked with sterling silver, solid silver, silver or Ster., if it doesn’t contain at least 92.5% pure silver. The remaining 7.5% is made of other metals to create and alloy. Since copper is probably the most used metal to produce sterling silver, it supplies durability on the jewelry making the silver harder, a disadvantage of copper is its tendency to tarnish. Whenever you plan to purchase a jewelry made of sterling silver, there are markings that you need to check.