What's the Difference Between Silver and Sterling Silver?

There isn't a difference, in the way the question assumes. Sterling silver is silver.

It's a grade of it: 92.5% pure, with the remaining 7.5% usually copper. So you're not choosing between two competing metals, the way you would between gold and platinum. You're looking at one metal and a decision about how pure it is.

That sounds like a technicality and it isn't, because the moment you understand it, every other silver question gets easier. Below we'll cover why pure silver isn't used, what the grades actually are, the "silvers" that contain no silver at all, and the twenty-three years England spent trying a purer standard and giving up on it.

Jump to:

• Why Pure Silver Isn't Used for Jewellery
• The Silver Grades, Explained
• The Catch Hiding in the 7.5%
• The "Silvers" That Contain No Silver
• When Britain Tried a Purer Standard
• What About Recycled Silver?
• How to Tell What You've Got
• FAQs

Why Pure Silver Isn't Used for Jewellery

Fine silver, the pure stuff at 99.9%, is beautiful and nearly useless for anything you'd wear.

It's soft enough to bend out of shape in a pocket. It scratches if you look at it wrong. It won't hold a clasp under tension or keep a stone in a setting, because the metal gives before the design does. Bullion is made from it precisely because bullion doesn't have to survive anything.

So it gets alloyed. Add 7.5% copper and you get a metal that's hard enough to make a chain from, holds its shape, takes a polish and keeps it. The colour barely changes. The value barely changes. What changes is that it becomes usable.

That's the whole reason sterling exists, and it's why the comparison people are reaching for isn't really a comparison. Sterling isn't a cheaper version of silver. It's the version that works.

The Silver Grades, Explained

Silver purity is measured in parts per thousand, which is why the numbers look like 925 rather than 92.5%. Same figure, different notation.

Two things worth pulling out of that table.

Sterling won globally, and not by accident. 92.5% is the point where you've added enough copper to make the metal properly durable without adding so much that the colour shifts or the value drops noticeably. Higher grades like Britannia are softer; lower grades like Continental 800 start to look and behave differently. Sterling is the compromise that turned out to be right, and it has held for centuries.

And the last row isn't a grade at all. More on that below, because it's where people get caught.

All four real grades in that table are recognised British standards, which means an assay office will hallmark any of them. What 925 means on jewellery covers the sterling mark in detail.

The Catch Hiding in the 7.5%

Here's the part that ties the whole subject together, and almost nothing on this topic says it out loud.

The copper that makes sterling usable is also the reason it tarnishes.

Pure silver barely reacts. It's the copper in the alloy that reacts readily with sulphur compounds in the air, and that reaction is what forms the dark layer people mistake for dirt or damage. So the 7.5% doing the structural work is the same 7.5% creating the maintenance.

Which means the trade-off is unavoidable rather than a design flaw. A softer, purer silver would tarnish less and bend in your pocket. A harder, less pure one would hold its shape better and tarnish faster. Sterling sits where it does because that's the point at which both problems are small enough to live with.

It also explains two things people find confusing. Sterling that never tarnishes isn't sterling, which is why "tarnish-free silver" in a listing is either plated, steel, or coated in something. And tarnish is evidence rather than a fault, which is why the white cloth test works: the black mark means the copper is doing what copper does, in metal that's genuinely 92.5% silver.

Some makers use modified alloys, substituting part of the copper for germanium or other metals to slow tarnishing. Those are still sold as sterling because they're still 92.5% silver, and the 7.5% is not specified by the standard. It's a real improvement rather than a marketing claim, though it costs more and it slows tarnish rather than preventing it.

The "Silvers" That Contain No Silver

Three terms use the word silver while containing none of it, and knowing them is worth more than knowing any grade.

Nickel silver, also sold as German silver or alpaca, is a copper-nickel alloy. It's named for its colour and nothing else. There is no silver in it whatsoever. It's a perfectly good material for some purposes, and it's a bad one against skin if you react to nickel, which plenty of people do.

Silver tone or silver finish is a colour description. It's the jewellery equivalent of calling something "wood effect". No claim about the metal is being made, and none should be read into it.

Silver plated is the genuinely confusing one, because it does contain silver. A thin layer of it, bonded to a base metal. The silver is real as far as it goes, but it's a surface rather than the object, and it wears through at the points that take the most contact. Once it does, what shows is whatever was underneath. We've covered how to separate plated from sterling in silver plated vs sterling silver.

The useful rule: a number tells you something, a word usually doesn't. 925 is a claim you can check, and above 7.78 grams it's one an assay office has already checked for you. "Silver tone" is a colour.

When Britain Tried a Purer Standard

Everything above argues that sterling sits where it does because purer silver is too soft to work with. England tested that argument for twenty-three years, which is a rare thing to be able to say about a metallurgical trade-off.

In 1697, as part of the Great Recoinage, the law raised the required standard for wrought silver from sterling to Britannia at 95.8%. The reason had nothing to do with jewellery. Silversmiths had been melting down and clipping the sterling coinage to make plate, since coin and plate were the same fineness and plate was worth more. Raising the standard for plate above the standard for coin removed the incentive at a stroke: you could no longer simply melt a shilling and make a spoon.

It worked as monetary policy and it was unpopular as a material. Britannia is noticeably softer than sterling, harder to raise and to chase, and slower to finish. The trade complained for two decades.

On 1 June 1720, sterling was authorised again. Britannia was never abolished, and it remains a recognised British standard to this day, marked 958 with the figure of Britannia rather than the lion passant that denotes sterling. It simply stopped being compulsory, and the trade went straight back to 925 and stayed there.

That episode is the argument of this whole page, made by an entire industry over two decades. Offered a purer silver by law, British silversmiths spent twenty-three years asking to be allowed back to the harder one. Sterling is not a compromise on purity. It is the point at which silver becomes a material you can actually build with.

What About Recycled Silver?

This comes up more than it used to, and it's usually asked as though recycled and sterling were alternatives. They aren't, and they're not even the same kind of thing.

Sterling describes purity. Recycled describes origin. A piece can be both, and most recycled silver on the market is recycled sterling.

The part that matters: refined silver is chemically identical regardless of where it came from. An atom of silver reclaimed from old cutlery or electronics is indistinguishable from one dug out of a mine last year. Once it's been through refining there is no test that can tell them apart, because there is nothing to tell apart. Recycled sterling at 925 is exactly as pure, exactly as durable and exactly as valuable as newly mined sterling at 925.

So the choice is an environmental one rather than a quality one, and anybody selling recycled silver at a premium on quality grounds is selling you a story. Anybody selling it on environmental grounds has a real argument, since mining silver is considerably more damaging than reclaiming it.

How to Tell What You've Got

Start with the mark. 925 or STERLING means sterling silver. 958 or a figure of Britannia means Britannia standard. 999 means fine silver. 800 is Continental. No mark at all means run a test, with one caveat below.

Britain gives you something most countries don't. Any silver article over 7.78 grams must be independently tested by an assay office and hallmarked before it can be sold as silver, which means the number on a heavy piece is a third party's verdict rather than the maker's claim. Under that weight, pieces are exempt, so a light chain may be entirely genuine and carry nothing at all. The symbols stamped on jewellery covers the full set of marks.

Beyond the mark, the best home test is an ice cube. Silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal, so ice melts on it visibly faster than on anything it's likely to be confused with. A magnet is the quickest way to rule silver out, since silver isn't magnetic. Our full guide to telling whether silver is real goes through every test, what each one proves, and what none of them can.

And once you know what you've got, how to clean sterling silver covers the tarnish, which is the one job sterling actually asks of you, and how to clean a silver chain covers the links and the clasp.

FAQs

What's the difference between silver and sterling silver?

There isn't one in the way the question implies. Sterling silver is silver. It's a grade of it, 92.5% pure with the rest usually copper, and it exists because pure silver is too soft to make jewellery from. So you're not choosing between two metals, you're looking at a specific alloy of the same one.

Is sterling silver real silver?

Yes, and it's the standard for jewellery everywhere. 92.5% pure, marked 925. The 7.5% that isn't silver is there to make the metal hard enough to survive being worn, not to dilute it.

Is there a difference between 925 and sterling silver?

No. They're two names for the same thing. 925 is the fineness, meaning 925 parts silver per thousand, and sterling is the name that fineness has carried for centuries.

Why isn't pure silver used for jewellery?

It's too soft. Fine silver at 99.9% bends out of shape, scratches easily and won't hold a setting or a clasp. Alloying it with a small amount of copper fixes that without meaningfully changing the colour or the value.

What is Britannia silver?

A higher British standard at 95.8% silver, marked 958. It was made compulsory in 1697 to stop silversmiths melting down coinage for plate, and sterling was permitted again in 1720 after the trade complained Britannia was too soft to work with. It is still a recognised standard and you will occasionally meet it on fine pieces.

Is nickel silver real silver?

No, and the name is the problem. Nickel silver, also sold as German silver or alpaca, is a copper-nickel alloy that contains no silver at all. It's named for its colour. If you react to nickel, it's also the last thing you want against skin.

What's the difference between recycled silver and sterling silver?

They aren't opposites. Recycled describes where the silver came from; sterling describes its purity. Recycled sterling silver is 92.5% silver exactly like newly mined sterling, because refined silver is chemically identical whatever its origin. The choice is environmental rather than about quality.

Does sterling silver tarnish?

Yes, and it's a sign it's genuine. Silver reacts with sulphur compounds in the air to form a dark surface layer. It polishes off in a couple of minutes and comes back eventually. Nothing that never tarnishes at all is sterling.

Is CRAFTD real silver?

Our 925 Collection is genuine sterling silver. Most of our other silver-tone pieces are rhodium-finished stainless steel, which is not silver and isn't sold as such. We've answered that question in full, including how to check any piece, in our guide to telling whether silver is real.

What's better, sterling silver or stainless steel?

Different things. Sterling is a genuine precious metal that tarnishes and polishes back. Steel isn't precious and has no material value, but it doesn't tarnish, corrode or fade and it handles daily wear better. One is about the metal, the other is about the upkeep.

Where to Go From Here

Sterling silver is silver. It's the grade that made silver wearable, it's been the standard for centuries with one twenty-three year interruption, and 925 on a clasp is the shortest version of everything on this page.

What's worth more of your attention is the other direction: the things called silver that aren't. A number you can check beats a word you can't, every time.

Have a look through the 925 Collection if you're after genuine sterling, or silver or gold if you're still deciding which way to go.