Silver Jewellery

Durango Silver Co has been making Silver Jewellery for Nearly forty years now. We are located in Durango, Colorado USA and specialize in many types of Silver Jewellery. We take great pride in our business as will as the Silver Jewellery that we produce and handle, quality Silver Jewellery is our priority and what we sell.

The following is an educational presentation on Silver Jewellery for your information and education. It is important for people interested in Silver Jewellery to be knowledgeable prior to investing in Sterling Silver Jewellery. We are certain Silver Jewellery is a wonderful investment for your future as well as being a beautiful form of Jewellery made in a precious metal, Sterling Silver.

Silver is one of the best investments on earth? In 1477, the global value of Silver was $806.00 per ounce, In 2003, Silver sold for $4.07 per 
ounce and on 1-14-2011 Silver is $28.52 per ounce which has more then doubled in the past year! Indications are the the value of Silver will increase dramatically in the next couple of years and the U.S. government predictions are to around $135.00 per ounce by 2015.

Jewellery has been the standard method of investment in precious metals by the general public for thousands of years worldwide and there has probably never been as good of time to invest in Silver Jewellery then today. There are many types of Silver Jewellery to invest in and Southwestern handcrafted Silver Jewellery is definitely one that is unique as well as highly collectible today and into to future.If you are going to invest, why not invest in something beautiful and unique like Designer Silver Jewelry .

Silver Jewellery is a fun and exciting to collect as it is a wearable art form that is timeless, as it ages it becomes more and more collectible to the point when it becomes antique Silver Jewellery. So, you purchase your Silver Jewellery, get to enjoy it by wearing it and it appreciates in value as time passes. It is reasonable to believe that Silver Jewellery is one of the top items to collect on earth today as governments worldwide are professing that Silver is well under valued and worldwide industry is currently using over 15% more Silver then is coming out of the ground. The cost of mining Silver has also increased dramatically and mining restrictions in many parts of the world have also put a damper on future production of Silver.

The following presentation on Silver Jewellery is from our company standpoint, what we have to offer and information to educate yourself if interested in doing business with our company. We have been in the Silver Jewellery business for over forty years, we are authorities on Silver Jewellery and we are a very reputable company that specializes in authentic Sterling Silver Jewellery.

Sterling Silver Jewellery

Sterling Silver is 92.5% fine (pure) Silver combined with 7.5% copper. Sterling Silver Jewellery is also considered .925 Sterling Silver Jewellery, .925 Silver Jewellery or Silver Jewellery .925. Tarnish resistant Argentium Sterling Silver is 1.2% germanium, 6.3% copper and 92.5% silver, the 1.2% germanium is the alloy that restricts the copper in the Sterling from Tarnishing. The reason for creating Sterling Silver was to harden fine Silver to enable to be made into Jewelry that would be durable and hard, fine Silver is simply not hard enough to be made into durable Silver Jewellery.

Silver Jewellery made throughout the world today is made with Sterling Silver as a rule. American Sterling Silver Jewellery is generally marked "Sterling" and Internationally made Silver Jewellery is generally marked ".925". It is not a law in the United States or any other country to mark Silver Jewellery as being Silver, however, Jewelers and Jewellery manufacturers have unified to mark precious qualities, (Sterling or .925), on their Silver Jewellery to assure their customers the quality of their Jewellery.

Durango Silver Company marks all of the Silver Jewellery that we produce with the Sterling and/or .925. We demand that the Jewellery made by Native Americans or other producers to mark the metal quality on all Silver Jewellery made for our company.

Coin Silver Jewellery

Coin Silver is 90% fine Silver and 10% Copper. Coin Silver Jewellery is made in many remote parts of the world where Sterling Silver is not available. Silver Jewellery made with Coin Silver is harder and tarnishes easier due to the amount of Copper alloy in the metal.Western Silver Jewellery made by the Native American Indians of the Southwest was originally made with Coin Silver until Sterling Silver became available around 1900. American Indian Silver Jewellery collectors can date certain Jewellery items by the Silver content of the metal in the Silver Jewellery.

Others consider Coin Silver Jewellery to be Jewellery that is made by using Silver Coins as the focal piece of the particular Jewellery item made. Silver Coin Jewellery is actually the proper pronunciation for Jewellery made with Silver Coins.

Making Silver Jewellery

Silver was first mined in the beginning of 4000 B.C. in Anatolia which is modern Turkey. It is assumed that the art of making Silver Jewellery began 
prior to 3000 B.C. and most likely in Anatolia, Asia Minor and the Greek Islands. The history of Silver Jewellery making goes back to ancient times and was also made thousands of years ago worldwide as Silver was known to be precious by civilizations around the world as it was discovered. Silver was found on all continents throughout the world and Artisan Silver Jewellery making ran hand in hand with the discoveries of Silver.

Silver is a reasonably soft and attractive metal which artisans worldwide recognized its Jewellery values. Fine Silver can be worked with a minimal amount of tools and for this reason it was used to make Jewellery. As time pasted copper was added to Silver to make it harder and artisans created tools to work alloyed Silver.

Handcrafted Silver Jewellery making - Handcrafted Silver Jewellery is made by working the metal by hand with hammers, stamping and forming tools. A Silversmith is much like a Blacksmith that can take a piece of Silver, hammer it into sheet and formed wire then sculpts and combined the Silver formations together with Silver solder which is made by combining Silver and Lead together. The Silver Solder melts at a slightly lower temperature enabling the artisan to bond multiple parts and pieces he has constructed together with a torch to create a piece of handmade Silver Jewellery.

Above is a photo of a Silver Jewellery Bracelet that was clipped from its casted tree.

Casted Silver Jewellery making - As Silver is a fairly soft metal it melts at a low temperature range of about 1700 degrees. The Silver Jewellery Artisans learned early on that Silver would become molten easily and could be casted into voids of clay, sandstone and other materials. Today Silver Jewellery casting has become a standard in Silver Jewellery manufacturing, casted Silver Jewellery makingis the method used to mass produce Jewellery. To do this, a master model of a piece of Jewellery such as a ring is created by hand or machine, a mould is taken of the master and then the mould is injected with wax or plastic to create a copy of the original. The Jewellery patterns are then assembled into a tree, Jewelers investment is poured around the tree in a flask and then the wax is melted out. Silver is heated to a molten state and poured into the voids where the wax patterns were and the Jewelers investment is removed from the Silver tree that has been casted - this is called lost wax casting.

Many types of unique Silver Jewellery can be made by hand fabricating the Silver or by casting the Silver into unique Silver Jewellery designs. There are hundreds of unique methods that different Silversmiths, Jewelers and Artisans from around the world have developed to make Silver Jewellery designs that are unique and unusual to themselves - this is the art of working with Silver to create unique pieces of art. Today all kinds of Silver Jewellery is popular from Native Silver Jewelry to Thai Silver Jewelry to Fashion Silver Jewelry.

Silver Jewellery

To the left is a heavy weight piece of Silver Jewellery made by John Hartman of Durango Silver Company. This Silver Bracelet was made by combining different Silver techniques from Silver wire, twisting, flattening, beading and sweat welding all of the pieces together to create a beautiful piece of Sterling Silver Jewellery.
John is a lifelong master silversmith from Durango, Colorado USA, He has produced Gold and Silver Jewellery for his own company as well as many other fine Jewellery Companies worldwide.

To the right is another piece of Sterling Silver Jewellery by John Hartman. This piece of Silver Jewellery was made in the lost wax method by applying layer over layer of molten wax to create a flowing effect. This Silver Bracelet has hand cut Turquoise and Sugilite gemstones that were also cut by John Hartman, John has been a stone cutter for over 40 years.

Above are two pieces of unique Silver Jewellery from Durango Silver Company. The Victorian gemstone ring on the left has a large Spiny Oyster Shell stone, a Gaspeite stone and a round Sugilite stone. It was put into a Victorian Silver Setting by John Hartman who is well known for his Southwestern Victorian Silver Jewellery. Learn more about our silver rings.

To the right is a handmade Silver necklace and a beautiful piece of Silver Jewellery in person. Durango Silver Company tries to always have unique Sterling Silver Jewellery items for our customers. We also try to giveaway unique pieces of Silver Jewellery such as this to our Newsletter Members in our monthly drawings, we invite you to join our Newsletter group/friends to receive a casual Newsletter with news on our company, new product reviews, special member only discounts and to be enrolled into our monthly drawing for free Silver Jewelry.

To the left is a unique handcrafted Silver Pendant made by Crystal Hartman of Durango Silver Company. Crystal lost wax method of making Jewellery is fabulous and every piece of her Silver Jewellery is a piece of art. Crystal is a unique Jewellery Artisan that produces a style of Silver Jewellery that you will not find elsewhere.

To the right is a Sterling Silver Cross and Silver Jewellery pieces like this can always be found on the Durango Silver Company Online Store as well as in our Trading Post here in Durango Colorado USA. We invite you to browse our Online Store and if you are ever in the Durango area, make certain you stop in for a visit to one of the most historic Trading Posts in the Southwest, Durango Silver Company.

Check out some of our other informational pages on Silver Jewellery;

Silver Jewelry - Vintage Silver Jewelry - Silver and Gold Jewelry - Silver and Turquoise Jewelry - Silver Jewelry Videos - Silver Necklaces - Mens Silver Jewelry

We hope you have enjoyed our presentation on Silver Jewellery and have gained some useful knowledge from it. We invite you to learn more about Silver Jewellery by following the links in our Learning Center to other informational pages that we have written on different topics related to Silver Jewellery. In addition, we would like to invite you to join our E-Mail Newsletter - about once every other month we send out a Newsletter to inform our members of what's happening with Durango Silver Company, new products, specials for our members and more. We also have a monthly drawing from our member base to give away free Silver Jewellery from our company. Please come see us in our Silver Gallery in Durango, Colorado USA. We hope when you think of Silver Jewellery you will think of Durango Silver Company.