Have you bought jewelry that has been sold to you as a sterling silver but afterwards it turned your finger in green or your earring piercing have been itching like a crazy? If you have thinking that there´s no way to tell without goldsmith or other specialist if your jewelry is real or not, continue read my blog post since I´m giving you couple ways to tell and test your silver jewelry at home so you can determine yourself if your jewelry is genuine sterling silver or not.
Difference between sterling silver and silver plated is usually price when it comes jewelry but not always. Sterling silver is usually stamped with 925 which means that particular jewelry contains 92.5 percent silver and rest is usually other metal like copper. Why? Solid sterling silver is pretty soft material and in order to make more durable jewelry, it needs to mixed with other metal to create more solid metal. So 925 stamped jewelry isn´t 100 % sterling silver.
What is does silver plated means? This most used in my jewelry that I make. Time to time someone ask me what this means. Silver plated as its name implies plated with genuine silver. Silver plated have very thin layer of silver and basic metal can be copper, brass or metal alloy but most commonly it´s copper.
Common thing both of these is that both are nickel, lead and cadmium free. According to EU directions all jewelry parts that imports to here must be nickel, lead and cadmium free. Most people have nickel allergy so don´t be too shy to choose silver plated.
Second way to tell if your jewelry is sterling silver is very easy and it can be easily test at home. I have to admit that I haven´t heard this technique before and it even crossed my mind until I tested it. Sterling silver isn´t magnetic. I test this with couple sterling silver pendants that I have. They didn´t attach at all in the magnet. Of course, this isn´t 100% accurate but it will fun to test as experimentation.
Third way to tell if your jewelry is sterling silver or not is to place your jewelry on ice cubes. Silver conducts heat better than most metals so real silver should melt the ice faster. I haven´t test this but I will after writing this post.
Fourth way is pretty simple to tell if you are buying sterling silver or not is price. If the jewelry what you are going to buy is sell to you unbelievably low price then most likely it´s not genuine sterling silver. Unless it´s on the sale but probably no one will sell genuine sterling silver jewelry just three dollars or euros.
Fifth way to tell if the jewelry is genuine sterling silver or not is place where you are going to buy it. Usually place like KultaJousi and Timanttiset here in Finland are trustworthy places to buy jewelry and you can trust that jewelry is sterling silver. If you live elsewhere than Finland, look places like Pandora or Tiffany & Co. I´m not good to mention international jewelry stores but I´m just mention couple names that comes to my mind. In my little Etsy shop (BlueBellJewelry) I usually mention in title and description if some jewelry part is sterling silver. I don´t use it much in my own jewelry since it´s very expensive material and poor jewelry parts availability.
Finally, don´t be fooled with couple terms: Silver plated or silver tone. These doesn´t mean that jewelry is sterling silver. As I mentioned earlier, silver plated is only plated with thin layer of real silver and it isn´t same thing as sterling silver. Silver tone means usually color of the jewelry and it isn´t made of silver.
I hope these few tips will help you determine if your jewelry is sterling silver or not. Happy jewelry shopping!
~ Minna
