Jewellery by Io Silver - Buy designer, limited edition, sterling silver jewellery from Io Silver Jewellery. Ask about our custom jewellery design service creating wedding and engagement rings in gold, platinum and silver with diamonds or your choice of gemstones. Visit our website and discover the great discounts available when you buy jewellery sets.

STERLING SILVER 

Sterling silver is composed of 92.5% silver alloyed with copper to strengthen it. Silver has one of the highest reflectivities of any metal, giving it unmatched brilliance, making it perfect for jewelry designs. Silver also has extremely high electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. Despite all these wonderful properties silver is relatively abundant and easy to extract from ore, so it is, at the same time, relatively affordable making it ideal for jewelry that will appeal to a wide audience.

At various time in history silver was even more valued than gold and had a mystical allure to it, often being associated with the sea, moon and lunar goddesses. Hallmarking of silver places a stamped mark on the silver to identify its origin and purity and is often an important part of determining the value of a collectible piece.

There are other alloys of silver with a higher content of silver than sterling. Mexican and Brittania silver each have about 95% silver. Coin silver on the other hand typically has only 90% silver.

The cleaning of sterling silver can be a burdensome task, which is why much of the silver jewelry manufactured today has various types of anti-tarnish finishes ranging from a flash overlay of pure silver, waxes, proprietary coatings and the currently very popluar rhodium plating. Rhodium in fact is a much more expensive raw material, but does not have quite the high brilliance of silver, however its superior anti-tarnish property outweigh its lower reflectivity value.

Silver Necklace

Necklaces are generally fashioned for women and girls although, not exclusively. A general characterization of silver necklaces includes a variety of styles, shapes, with and without gemstones, intricate ornamental designs as well as understated and unpretentious forms. These pieces of neckwear jewelry are generally reserved for special occasion wear and are most often worn without any additional fancy or elaborate extra neckchains so as to keep the focus on the elegance and individuality of the creation. There are however, several examples of sterling silver collars which are specifically intended to accommodate and highlight a piece of outstanding, stellar jewelry. Worn generally close to the neck, for greatest impact, necklaces are typically available in 16”-30” lengths. The earliest occurrence of the necklace as jewelry was about 40,000 years ago in Africa and since that early era, necklaces have been revered over the centuries by the rich and upper classes of society.

Silver Collars – Precious metal collars began their rise in popularity with the Hebrews and Egyptians some 40 centuries ago in Africa. Sterling silver collars are generally represented by a circular piece of high polish silver stock, either tubular or flat stock, which encircles the neck. Made to accommodate a “slide” which is typically a silver motif design, or an exceptional piece of jewelry, which utilizes the unadorned collar as the perfect backdrop in which to showcase the article. Adaptations of the sterling silver collar may include a change in shape from a complete circular to oval, one in which the sterling collar is crafted into a “V” shape, and the last permutation is one in which an incomplete circle whose end members rest on the shoulder rather than envelope the neck fully.

Marcasite Sterling Silver Rings  - Marcasite sterling silver rings reached their pinnacle of popularity around the turn of the 20th century. A direct outgrowth of two previous design periods, the Art Deco marcasite jewelry utilized the opulent and geometric styling of the Art Nouveau and the Edwardian periods. By cultivating free form and spirit, the this styling of marcasite jewelry is is diametrically opposed to the oppressive and conservative nature of the Victorian period which preceded it. Originally made from platinum and the marcasite mineral, which is a gold platy mineral lending itself well to small flakes or chips used in jewelry, today's marcasite is typically made of sterling silver rather than platinum, although the marcasite mineral is still retained as in the original. We here at Plum Island Silver offer wholesale marcasite ring jewelry and rings at affordable and reasonable pricing, all with a styling that closely mimics vintage marcasite fashions. The gemstones incorporated within the sterling ring settings are of significant cut and quality, not unlike the general quality of the overall workmanship. Gemstones represented are amethyst, garnet, mother-of-pearl, citrine, black onyx, blue topaz, and green quartz, however there are several examples of marcasite rings without any gemstones.The shiny and glittery aspects of marcasite sterling silver rings lends this category of sterling rings to women and girls, and generally not for men.

The History of Silver = The article below was taken from http://www.silverjewelryinfo.com

Silver is known by the mankind since Pre-History, and its discovery is estimated happened to shortly after that of copper and gold. The oldest reference to the element appears in the book of Genesis. The Egyptians considered gold to be a perfect metal, and gave it the symbol of a circle. Since silver was the closest to gold in perfection, it was given the symbol of a semi-circle. Later this semi-circle led to a growing moon symbol, probably due to the likeness between the shining metal and the moon glow. The Romans called silver argentum, keeping this as the international name of the element, from where its chemical symbol derives.

Just as gold, silver was considered by the Ancients an almost sacred metal and consequently, of extremely restricted use. Its malleability and ductility make it ideal for ornamental purposes. It was also used for paying debts, in personal and religious places decoration and in utensils of the wealthiest houses.

Some mineral scums in old mines of the Near-East and in some islands of the Aegean sea seem to reveal that by 5000 b.C. a method was already known to separate silver from lead. The gold and the silver were extracted from its ores and bonded to lead. After oxidation of this mixture, it was possible to obtain the precious metals.

People first mined silver in the Bronze Age, for jewelry. Silver was pretty easy to find all over Europe and West Asia. The big problem was, silver ore (the rocks that had silver in them) generally also had lead in it, so that lead mining and silver mining were the same thing. But lead is very poisonous, so the men who were mining the silver were also being poisoned by the lead. Most lead-and-silver miners died of lead poisoning in two or three years. Because of this, most free men wouldn't work in the mines, and so they forced slaves to work in the mines instead.

One famous silver mine was Laurion, near Athens in Greece. About 500 BC, the Athenians found an enormous silver mine right near Athens, on land that belonged to the government. This mine was what paid to build Athens' first navy, and helped Athens to become a powerful city-state.

Another famous set of mines were in southern Spain. These mines were already being worked in the Bronze Age. After the First Punic War, in the 250's BC, the Carthaginians took over these mines and used the income from them to pay the money the Romans demanded. Then in the Second Punic War the Romans took over these mines and used the money they got from the mines to pay for more conquests.

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