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How Can You Tell the Purity of Silver?Before silver can be use in jewelry
The first thing you should know about silver, is that you are not likely to see truly pure silver in any form. Silver at it's purest, 99.9%, is far too soft to hold its form and sustain the normal knocks and bumps of usage as jewelry or even decorative items. In order to make silver a functional alloy, it's usually mixed with copper, to a ratio of 92.5% silver and 7.6% copper, which gives you the silver grade of .925SS or sterling silver. The origins of the term "sterling" are somewhat murky. However, the primary source traces it back to an area of Germany where five townships had banded together in the 1200s, and minted their own 92.5% silver coins. This region did so much business with England, it came to the attention of the king, who then imported German experts to begin minting English coins in the same blend, hence the term "pounds sterling", as well as "sterling silver". At one time, sterling silver was used for many of the world's currencies, but fell out of use in the mid 20th century, due to the cost of manufacturing it. However, sterling silver is still used in its nearly pure form, for various types of jewelry, and in plating for such things as vases, candelabras, tea services, and tableware. For these items, the silver content is measured not in purity, but in thickness, which can vary according to its use. For example, when looking at silver-plated tableware, you'll find that it's graded in microns of thickness. A micron is one one-thousandth of a millimeter, or one twenty-five-thousandths of an inch. The greater the micron depth, the longer the plating will last with frequent use.
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