Ah, what is it about sterling silver jewelry that makes us all yearn to accumulate them like crazy? Even men these days are collecting their own sets of sterling silver earrings and rings. Of course, women have always had this love affair with jewelry – all types in fact, from gold jewelry, to silver jewelry, to all manner of gemstones (i.e. cubic zirconia jewelry.) But what exactly is sterling silver jewelry?

It may come as a shocker to most of you, but there is a great difference between pure silver jewelry and sterling silver jewelry. Primarily, there is hardly any pure silver jewelry in the market. Pure silver (99% fine silver) is usually too soft and malleable to be off any long-lasting use. Just think of how pliable aluminum foil can be; no matter how many folds of foil you have stacked on top of each other, it will remain adaptable to a person’s hands. Now, we aren’t saying that pure silver jewelry is aluminum-foil-thin. All we are saying that pure silver cannot retain its shape and dimension without mixing alloys with it – a property that is similar to aluminum foil.

The term sterling actually connotes the alloys mixed with the silver. Some of the conventional alloys used are copper (which is the most widely used alloy today), boron, germanium, platinum, silicon and zinc. Sterling silver jewelry is then usually defined as jewelry that should contain at least that 92.5% fine silver and 7.5% alloys.

These days, sterling silver jewelry is often engineered for a more appealing look. Some of them are mixed with alloys that is maintains a tarnish-free look, unlike gold jewelry. Others are set in a way that other forms some sort of iridescent multi-coloration to enhance the gemstones or minerals embedded within, as you would often see in silver and CZ jewelry. A great example of this are the new emerging designs for CZ rings set in sterling silver.