Want to know how to identify the silver content of jewelry?  Silver purity marks defined and some types of “Silver” that aren’t silver at all!

The precious metal silver is very soft in its purest form, so other metals (like copper) are usually alloyed with silver to increase silver’s hardness.  In “Tarnish Resistant” silver the copper has been replaced by up to 10 other elements designed to give tarnish resistance.

“Sterling” silver is the most common purity used today.  The sterling “925” mark indicates a silver purity of 925 parts per thousand, or 92.5% silver content, also referred to as .925 purity.  Vintage jewelry can be found with marks indicating silver purity slightly higher than sterling ranging from 980 to 935, or marks indicating silver purity slightly less than sterling ranging from 920 to 750.  Antique German and Polish silver used a 16 part system to indicate silver purity (16/16 for pure silver) 15=.937 14=.875 13=.812 12=.750.  And then there are a plethora of foreign “symbols” and “animal” marks used to indicate silver purity – there are several online informational resources available to identify these (two of my favorites are 925-1000.com and silvercollecting.com).

Jewelry marked “Alpaca Mexico” is real silver generally with purity slightly less than sterling.  Now just to make things confusing “Alpaca Silver” is not actually silver at all but instead an alloy of copper, nickel, zinc and possibly antimony, tin, lead or cadmium.  This type of non-silver alloy is also called “German Silver” and “Nickel Silver”.

“Silver Plated” indicates a very thin layer of real silver over an inexpensive base metal or alloy.  This layer can be less than 0.000007 inches thick and wears off with use so eventually the base metal shows through.  Also called “Electroplated” or “Electrogilded”.

“Vermeil” jewelry is a solid sterling silver base with a gold plating of up to 24 karat gold.

“Costume” and “Fashion” jewelry can be referred to as “Silver” based on the color.  A more accurate reference would be “Silver Tone”.  The piece may or may not actually contain a small amount of real silver (most likely not).

Unfortunately many pieces of fine silver jewelry are not marked, especially handcrafted artisan jewelry where all sterling components used are without purity marks.

Always buy silver from an honest reputable seller.  My advice is to check the Seller’s feedback before you buy!

If this has been helpful please vote below (I’m trying to get my score up!).  If not, please email me and let me know what I can do to improve this guide (I’m always happy to receive suggestions and constructive criticism!)

I wish you happy shopping!

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