Silver is a precious metal that has been used to make jewelry since ancient times. In the biker culture, silver is a metal number 1. And it's not just because of a relatively low price. Silver is a hard and strong metal that will serve its owner for many years. Silver counterfeits are relatively rare, nevertheless, no one is immune from purchasing a substandard ornament. That’s why you should trust only respectful sterling silver jewelry manufacturers, such as Biker Ring Shop. We guarantee that all our silver jewelry is 100% genuine. Hence, we would like to tell you how you can tell real 925 sterling silver from fakes.
What Can Be Sold Under the Guise of Silver?
Unfortunately, today unscrupulous manufacturers can sell anything under the guise of silver. Most often, they offer alloys with a low content of this metal. Such items may bear 925 hallmarks but, naturally, they do not correspond to it. As a result, buyers can get jewelry made of base metal with a thin silver coating or ornaments that don’t contain a single gram of this noble metal. In any case, this situation is very unpleasant and offensive. Fortunately, there are many ways to verify the authenticity of silver.
Signs of Quality Silver Jewelry
High-quality silverware is considered to be made of an alloy with 925 mark meaning the alloy contains 92.5% of silver. Alloys with less silver content (such as 800, 830, 875, 925) are not worth buying - they will quickly darken. Allows that contain less than 80% of silver are not considered to be precious. Jewelry should have a passport telling about its characteristics such as weight, sample, gemstones and their mass (carats).
You should pay attention whether alloy contains zinc. Quality products do not have zinc because this metal negatively affects human health. Look for "Zinc free" jewelry.
How to Verify the Authenticity of Silver
All the methods you can use to distinguish silver from counterfeits are built upon the physical and chemical properties of Argentum. To begin with, you can bring jewelry to a magnet - silver won’t be drawn to it since it is not magnetic.
Another property that distinguishes silver is its high thermal conductivity. In other words, this metal quickly heats up and quickly cools down. It is not difficult to check thermal conductivity at home. Just put jewelry into boiling water for a moment. Silver will immediately heat up while surrogate will be hardly warm.
Another way to test silver jewelry is to slightly scratch the top layer of a biker ring with a needle. Silver won’t react to this manipulation but forgeries, for example, brass, will lose their coating and expose the reddish metal.
Let's move from physics to chemistry. Check your home first aid kit for a tincture of iodine (a popular antiseptic). Just drop a little onto an ornament and carefully look at the reaction. If nothing happened then a product is made of real silver, but if it acquires a blue color, then, unfortunately, you have an ornament produced of alloy with zinc. By the way, such an alloy can be determined without experiments with iodine. Just hold jewelry in your hands. Zinc is rapidly oxidized and you will see dark marks on your hands.
Another way to find out whether you bought genuine sterling silver jewelry is to smear its surface with sulfur ointment (this is a popular medicine against acne). Apply a little bit of ointment and leave it for a couple of hours. Then wash the substance off and look at the result. There can be only 3 results - metal can turn black, acquire a rusty hue or not change at all. If an ornament darkens, then you have a real precious metal. In all other cases, you have a counterfeit.
And there is one more simple method. Just rub your ring with a piece of chalk and carefully look at it. If the chalk turns black, then there is a real silver jewelry. However, if the chalk does not change its color, then you have a surrogate.
We hope these tips become useful for you when buying 925 sterling silver biker jewelry. However, with Biker Ring Shop you can rest assured that you always purchase high-quality products made of real silver.