Silver – An Amazing Element
Silver, is not just a beautiful precious metal, as well as being used for centuries in coins, jewelry and decoration, it is also commonly used in scientific and medical fields as well as in photography.
In it's purest form Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag . A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal.
The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form or native silver, as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite.
Most silver is produced as a by-product of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining rather than being mined for it's own properties.
Silver has been known since ancient times. Mentioned in the book of Genesis, slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated from lead as early as 4000 BC using surface mining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and it is used to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware and utensils, hence the term silverware, and coins, the earliest usage being recorded around 700 B.C. Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold.
Today, silver metal is also used in electrical contacts and conductors, in solar reflectors, mirrors and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film and dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used as disinfectants and micro-biocides.
Jewelry and silverware are traditionally made from sterling silver, sometimes called standard silver. Sterling Silver is an alloy of 92.5% silver with 7.5% copper. In the US, only an alloy consisting of at least 92.5% fine silver can be marketed as "silver" and this is why it is usually stamped somewhere with 925.
Hallmarks for silver have been used for hundreds of years and vary hugely from country to country. Over the years, most countries in the world have developed their own systems of hallmarking silver.
The purpose of hallmarks are numerous and include an indication of the purity of the silver alloy used in the manufacture or hand-crafting of the piece, they are useful to identify the silversmith or company that made the piece and they can note the date and location of the manufacture.
The Study of silver hallmarks is an enormous field but we will give you a brief synopsis on our Hallmarks page.
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My hubby’s family were going to throw out a bunch of stuff from his Granny’s house after she passed. One of the things I saved was an antique silver platter that has a B engraved into the front of the platter(her maiden name). It is stamped, and I now have it on display in our dining room. A great find!!!