I will! If it’s not coin silver or sterling what would it be? Nickle?
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sorry for the spelling error - nickel.
I found this catalogue from 1938. Some of the conchas look similar but I can’t read the copy.
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I sure hope not. That’s aqua regia, used to dissolve gold.
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I’d be surprised if they don’t definitively test as sterling. Coin silver would be a surprise as well, but not out of the question by any means. Nickel is a fair amount harder than silver, is used as an alloying element when manufacturing stainless steels and nickel/chromium alloys, and extensively utilized in many different plating applications. While nickel sheet/plate does exist and has it’s intended uses, jewelry would be an odd one, I would think.
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Hi, I had one tested at a jeweler’s and they said it tested as coin silver.
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Makes me wonder if they just meant the alloy was less than .925. You can get a lower silver content without it involving the use of coins.
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I’ll ask that when I go to pick it up. If that’s the case, what does it mean in terms of age and value?
Silver content doesn’t mean anything in terms of age. “Coin” silver is typically ~80 - 85%, but anyone alloying silver at any time can produce anything from zero silver, to 99.999% silver. Whoever made these could have been casting concha blanks from scrap 3 days ago, or 30 years ago.
You just don’t know, and you can’t infer age strictly from ‘style’ and silver content. To do so without absolute knowledge of origin is false advertising. Many online vendors do this, but it’s quite unethical.
It seems you want very much for this to be something you can represent in the most favorable light possible to obtain the highest possible price, and that’s perfectly fine, but barring a positive match with some published source dating to a particular period, you’ve likely learned everything useful there is to learn here about what you have.
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