Jewellery Care 101_9295

Testing your metal

1

It's hard as nails

The gold, silver and platinum used in jewellery in the UK and the

US is alloyed. An alloy is a mix of metals, meaning it's not 100%

pure. The pure mined metals are very soft and can be bent or

scratched easily.

Testing your metal

So that we can make a more hard wearing yet still beautiful

piece of jewellery, we add other metals to the pure precious

metals in varying amounts. This results in dierent grades of

precious metals. So, for instance Sterling Silver, Fine Silver, 9ct

Gold, 18ct Gold and so on. These grades are stamped into each

piece of jewellery, called hallmarking.

We think of metals as being very hard wearing and up to a point

they are, but dierent metals have dierent properties and

levels of hardness. Nails and screws, for instance, are generally

made from a high grade steel and yes, they are very hard,

enabling them to withstand hammering into and holding other

materials together. But jewellery and other ne items made of

metal need special care. They're not as durable as you might

think.

In this little guide we'll deal with the metals most commonly

used for jewellery - silver, gold and platinum, although jewellery

is also made from palladium, titanium, copper, brass, bronze,

nickel, steel, tungsten, aluminium...

Alloy there!