Posted 7 years ago
freiheit
(1223 items)
Although this vintage Mexican panel bracelet is marked 925, I really doubt that it actually is sterling. But that's just fine by me, because I like it for the fact that it complements my little collections of Mexican jewelry.
I posted it in "fine jewelry" because for "costume jewelry" there is no category for "Mexican jewelry"
Thanks for looking:)
I see no reason to doubt that it is sterling. Britain & points west seem always to have expected silver to be of high quality, while being less fussy about gold. Until fairly recently, Europe & points east would not have considered 10k gold to be real gold while settling for 800 silver. Handsome piece. :)
Mary, you are a good observer. Indeed, both are very similar (https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/212768-vintage-mexican-bracelet) I posted one that has the same metal pattern but the "stones" are different. The first one has turquoise stones with a texture and the latest one has blue stones without a texture:)
cameosleuth, thanks for your interesting insight. I have some friends that would not even look at 10k, while in Germany it is rather common. I am still very confused about the different silver content of some pieces. I guess to be sure, I would have test the piece.
It would not be sound practice for a jeweler to mark as 925/sterling pieces that were actually of a lower grade of silver. Being discovered at this would ruin your reputation & possibly create problems with a regulatory body. If your entire country got an international reputation for this, it really would be disastrous. These days it seems countries that once used 800 silver routinely, such as Italy & Egypt, are now conforming to the 925/ sterling standard.
Just to review for readers who may not be clear on this, silver is graded on a scale where 1000 represents pure silver. Since pure silver is too soft for most uses, it is alloyed with another metal for strength. Wikipedia informs me copper is commonly the other metal. (This bit confuses me, since pure copper is also extremely soft; must be a synergy of the 2 together.) While occasionally you will see silver jewelry marked 999 (Henryk Winograd was known for this) most modern pieces meet the definition for sterling, 925 parts per 1000 silver. Today's consumer expects no less.
cameosleuth, thanks so much for your insight. I agree with you about the reputation being questioned if the standards are not there, however, this seems to apply only to certain countries. I am not sure about how to put it nicely, but from experience I know that not all items marked "925" are really meeting this standard, especially when they are coming from certain parts of the world. I got burned a few times when I started collecting a few years ago. I was inexperienced and naive. I trusted the marks exactly for the reasons you mentioned until I found out the hard way that one should be very careful when something is marked "925" and "China", unless it is a real vintage piece. Having said that, my taste has also changed a lot and today I don't even look at these more recent pieces anymore.
I guess, though, that this experience has made me a bit of a skeptic.
Once again thanks for your well-written and informative comments. I really appreciate them:)