How is silver purity determined?
A) “Pure” Silver
B) Fine Silver
C) Sterling Silver
D) Lower Quality Silvers
E) Silver Plating
Testing 925 Sterling Silver
- Hallmarks
- Professional Jewelers
- Acid Testing
- Bleach Test
- Ice Cube Test
- Magnet Test
“Pure” Silver jewelry is mostly a misnomer as almost all silver products outside of laboratories or research facilities have at least .01% of another metal in them, technically making them “alloys.” 100% pure silver is too soft and not good for jewelry, hence the addition of other, harder metals.
“Fine Silver” is the most commonly regarded “pure silver” with 99.9% silver content and usually .01% copper. It is generally reserved for bullion bars or bullion coins that people invest in, and it is stamped or hallmarked with “999.” More on the trustworthiness of hallmarks on silver down below…
“Sterling Silver” is 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper or other metals. It is the gold standard (no pun intended) for what is considered high quality jewelry. Sterling silver is usually hallmarked or stamped with “925.” Again, more on the veracity of hallmarks below.
Lower Quality Silvers are measured by a system called “fineness” that denotes the purity of precious metals, and they are numerous. They include 900, 875, 800, and many, many more. If you’re interested in this you can read more about that here.
Silver-plating/Silver Overlay
Silver plated is the cheapest kind of jewelry that people try to pass off as 925 Sterling Silver. Silver plate jewelry is not durable, not valuable, causes skin reactions, can turn your skin green, and is increasingly common. It is not Sterling Silver.
So how can you determine if your silver is real, genuine, authentic 925 sterling silver?
- HALLMARKS OR STAMPS
In the United States it is illegal to fraudulently stamp jewelry with the 925 hallmark when it is not actual Sterling Silver. Unfortunately, this practice is not uncommon. In sourcing goods for this website alone I have come across counterfeit sterling silver literally dozens of times. Unscrupulous foreign manufacturers, corrupt dealers, and dishonest sellers abound. Silver-plated items deceptively hallmarked “925” are ubiquitous on sites like Etsy, Ebay, Poshmark, Mercari, and of course, Temu, just to scratch the surface. I have reported several of them but do not have the time or emotional energy to engage with the negativity, deceit, and greed associated with those enterprises.
- PROFESSIONAL JEWELERS
Obviously, taking jewelry to a professional jeweler is not a convenient or accessible thing for most people. It is however the most the reliable way to determine if your silver jewelry is 925 silver. Most jewelers have expensive precious metal analyzers costing tens of thousands of dollars called XRF guns that can identify and the material composition of metals and gemstones without harming the jewels.
3. ACID TESTING
While acid testing is a fairly reliable method for determining the silver purity of jewelry it requires that you damage your piece. To perform an acid test you will need to get through what may very well be silver plating or silver overlay and cut or scratch the jewelry to then apply nitric acid to the scratched surface. Acid testing kits are relatively cheap (small bottles can cost $7) and if the resulting color of the test is red it indicates true sterling silver while other colors indicate the presence of cheaper metals.
There exists a simpler, less damaging, but less accurate way to acid test silver by scratching/rubbing the silver against a black stone then putting the acid on the silver that has been scratched off onto the stone. There are people that say this isn’t the most dependable approach as it is possible you may have only scratched off the silver plating, which would still test positive for sterling silver on the stone’s surface.
- BLEACH TEST
This test is often recommended across the internet because if you dab bleach on genuine sterling silver jewelry it turns blackish within seconds. Problem is, silver plating also turns blackish within seconds, making this method useless for authenticating solid sterling silver.
- ICE CUBE TEST
This test involves placing one ice cube by itself on a surface and placing another ice cube on top of your jewelry on the same kind of surface and seeing if the one on top of your jewelry melts faster. While it’s true that silver has high “thermal conductivity,” so do other metals, especially silver plating. In my humble opinion this is a silly, highly subjective, and unreliable test for sterling silver.
6. MAGNET TEST
Another popularly touted way to test for 925 silver is to use a magnet because silver is has very weak magnetic effects unlike some cheap metals that would be underlying a silver plating like nickel, iron, or cobalt. Unfortunately savvy counterfeiters often make silver plated jewelry out of copper or brass which are also not magnetic, making this test mostly useless.
So how do you reliably determine if your jewelry is actually Sterling Silver?
Well, reputable sellers and sources are the best bet. If the price seems too good to be true, it generally is. Properly cared for, steeling silver will outlast us by a long, long time.