Jewelry Pearls

Collecting silver can well become a fascinating hobby, but I warn you that all you need to do is inherit one piece of fine antique silver, or buy a beautiful piece you see in an antique shop, and you are hooked! From then on you search and acquire what your pocketbook allows sometimes it doesn’t allow! If you can’t afford an antique, don’t be discouraged. There are excellent sterling silver copies and magnificent Sheffield plate. All that is missing will be the patina of age and the hallmark. So gently polish your newly acquired modern treasure, it will soon acquire its own patina and giye you untold pleasure and service.

Anyone who refuses inherited silverware, or brides who specify “no silver gifts” because it is difficult to clean, are indeed denying themselves and their families great pleasure. Silver is a good investment. Silverware is easily washed and quickly polished, and although silver will dent or bend through careless use, it never chips or breaks.

Silver, being strongly resistant to atmosphere, oxidation, and most organic compounds common to foods and beverages, is extremely useful in the home and outlives the finest china. Silver flatware, bowls, serving trays, tea or coffee services, candlesticks, etc., are utilitarian as well as beautiful, and certainly enhance the elegance of home surroundings.

The history of silver uses and silver crafts, like furniture, have followed the great influence of conquest and culture, so we trace here briefly some highlights of its story, hoping the reader will appreciate more fully the uses of this lustrous metal and the craftsmen who have handled it with such ingenuity.

Silver, the whitest of all metals, has been known and used by mankind since the dawn of history, and through the centuries has become a symbol of personal wealth, an influence and monetary balance among civilized nations.

Silver is widely diffused throughout nature and occurs in minute amounts, even in seawater. Legends tell that the ancient Chinese believed silver could be mined anywhere that wild onions were growing. Ancient alchemists attributed the white brilliance of silver to moon-glow and called the metal Luna or Diana, meaning the Crescent Moon. Silver Nitrate is still referred to as Lunar Caustic!

Second only to gold in ductility and malleability, silver readily responds to the silversmith’s every whim. Silver is soft, therefore useless unless alloyed with another metal. Copper is the most commonly used alloy.

To control the permissible amount of copper to be alloyed with silver, King John of England, in 1180, created the Goldsmiths’ Guild, then entrusted the Guild with the enforcement of silver laws. Each article of silver manufactured had to be assayed and marked by a member of the Guild, and the assay-marker was as responsible as the smith for any piece that did not contain the proper proportion of silver and alloy. Substandard pieces were broken, and the smith severely punished; death could be the penalty. As a matter of history, the gold or silversmith was a man to be reckoned with and in time became our first banker.

As a further guarantee of the silver standard, all fine pieces of English silver were hallmarked. These marks are invaluable to connoisseurs and collectors of fine silver and a fascinating subject to pursue. Hallmarks identify the silversmith, place of origin, and approximate date a piece was made.

Leave a Reply