Types of Silver: a quick overview

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hey Everyone! I need to put a quickie list/matrix together of all the
different types of silver found on the market and how much silver is
actually in there, and what is it mixed with… I would love some
help filling in the gaps below.

For example: Pewter: no silver, what is it really? Silver colored base
metal: no silver, what is it really? Fine silver: pure & stamped
1000. Easy enough. Sterling: mixed with copper & stamped 925/1000. In
some countries mixed with zinc instead and gives a whiter look. Coin
silver .900 silver (what is the rest?) not stamped? Mexican silver:
ranging between .900 to .980. Stamp? Thai silver? Stamp? Turkish
silver? Stamp? Any other countries? German silver? No silver content.
An alloy of what? Nickel silver? No silver content. An alloy of what?
Rhodium plated? Silver colored but what is it really? Black Hills
Silver: silver from the Black Hills, what state is that again? South
Dakota? Anything else that I didn’t think of?

Thanks a bunch!
Iris SandkChler in San Francisco

2

Please please please include on all that "Bali silver"
that appears as findings in many shows and catalogs lately. I never
did get a definitive answer on what it really is - I don’t think
it’s all the same stu ff, anyway. Technically, it should be silver
that is (worked, fabricated, wha tever) in Bali. But I have noticed
that it is almost all much darker than the same kinds of findings
sold as “sterling”, and close investigation shows that the dark areas
that I originally thought were polishing-compound residues are in
fact some kind of lacquer-y substance that frequently can be chipped
off. Is i t silver at all? Nickel “silver”? German “silver”? Sterling?
Some of the regular suppliers are selling it - it’s not just the
fly-by-nights that appear at a couple of shows and never again.

Tas