Would you rather have tarnish resistant silver alloy than pure silver?

[Bimetallic]

Hi all -- Take a look at Argentium Silver to see what I mean. It comes in 935 and 960 fineness. 935 exceeds the sterling standard (925), and 960 exceeds the classic Britannia standard (958). Argentium is much more tarnish resistant than 999 or 9999 fine silver.

I think the key alloying metal is germanium.

Would you rather have bars and rounds made of this? I'm leaning yes. They're also harder and less scratch prone, and the metal looks great.

Problem: They probably charge some kind of licensing fee, which would increase the premiums on these things.

Non-problem: You'd still get a full ounce of silver (or 10 ounces or whatever). Alloys used in PM bullion are typically handled in such a way that the coin or bar contains the full amount of silver or gold – thus they weigh a bit more than an ounce. See the American Gold Eagle and the Krugerrand, or the pre-2012 silver Britannias, which were 958.

Edit: There are other alloys like Argentium, such as Sterlium and Silvadium. See this breakdown. They're all designed to be worked by jewelry makers, melted, reformed, etc.

[EdNug]

For usable things like jewellery, cutlery and coins it makes perfect sense - brighter, shinier, harder, no tarnishing.  Not sure about bullion bars and rounds though, purity seems more important there - its all going to end up in the melting pot again at some point.

How is the alloy viewed by industrial users? Does Germanium negatively affect silver's conductivity, or any of its other properties? Is it easy to separate again?

If I buy a pot of honey I'd rather not have a spoonful of sugar mixed into it

[HawkHybrid]

I'm thinking it might be gimmicky like coloured coins.

 

nit picking aside, how is it better than sterling silver?

 

HH

[flim]

something like non rusty iron pole in india, the ancient tech

it seems for practical usage

[KevinFlynn]

My thoughts are the same as mentioned above.

This could be viable for items of actual use, like silverware or tools (as long as the silver retained it's antibacterial properties).

I personally do not think it would be that suited for jewelry, as it would rob silver jewelry part of it's character, maybe for pieces that would be considered modern art though.

For bullion, I would be very careful. There is a reason bullion is three 9s or higher, and I would not want to have to sell at melt.

[greendragon]

do we really think maples,Britannia,s and Queen,s Beasts will be melted when we sell them?

dealers may only pay spot price for them ,but would they turn down the chance to sell them again with 30 or 40 % added?

if they are selling on, it is irrelevant  what it is alloyed with.

 

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[Bimetallic]

4 hours ago, HawkHybrid said:

I'm thinking it might be gimmicky like coloured coins.

 

nit picking aside, how is it better than sterling silver?

 

HH

It's tarnish-resistant. Sterling silver is not. That's the whole point of it, of Argentium and similar alloys like Sterlium and Silvadium. They don't tarnish as much as sterling, if at all, and also resist firescale. People like to work it.

[Martlet]

It does seem to me that 999 silver creates problems, notably milk spotting, for little advantage over a lightly doctored alloy.   It seems to me they followed the 999 pureness of gold, which is widely exempt from taxes and recognised for bullion as too soft for practical applications.  However this exemption isn't followed, as pure silver still has good industrial purpose so treated as industrial commodity.  Some carefully chosen alloy would help and I dont think bother the bullion investor. 

[KevinFlynn]

1 hour ago, greendragon said:

do we really think maples,Britannia,s and Queen,s Beasts will be melted when we sell them?

dealers may only pay spot price for them ,but would they turn down the chance to sell them again with 30 or 40 % added?

if they are selling on, it is irrelevant  what it is alloyed with.

Sure, but core investor grade silver is 999+ good delivery bars and bullion coins. Everything diverting from that will be a step less guaranteed. That goes for 999+ private mint bars and rounds as well as for silver alloy items.

Of course there is a market for everything, but that cannot be the argument.

What I would want to answer is:

What items lose value when tarnishing or having scratches?

Would there be items that grow in value by tarnishing or being scratched?

What items derive additional value from being tarnish and scratch free?

Then I could answer what items would be suited for being made from a tarnish and scratch resistant silver alloy. Perhaps there is not a geeral answer to that question, but an 'it depends'.

[HawkHybrid]

the advantage of sterling silver is that it's an easy and

cheap fix for those who are willing to trade some purity

for a more corrosion resistant mixture.

my guess is better corrosion resistance is not going to

make it replace silver in existing uses. there are many

pros and cons for using silver in existing applications.

tarnish is only one of them.

 

HH

 

[Bimetallic]

4 hours ago, HawkHybrid said:

the advantage of sterling silver is that it's an easy and

cheap fix for those who are willing to trade some purity

for a more corrosion resistant mixture.

 

Is sterling supposed to be more corrosion resistant than pure silver?

[Bimetallic]

4 hours ago, KevinFlynn said:

Sure, but core investor grade silver is 999+ good delivery bars and bullion coins. Everything diverting from that will be a step less guaranteed. That goes for 999+ private mint bars and rounds as well as for silver alloy items.

That's a good point Flynn. I guess the only way to overcome it would be to invent a microalloy that was 999 pure. There's been some research on gold microalloys, one of which was 995 pure and used antimony I believe (to achieve much greater hardness).

Pure silver can also be dramatically hardened beyond what we get right now in rounds, coins, and bars. There's a process called severe plastic deformation, a form of extreme cold working I gather. I can get 9999 silver to over 100 Vickers hardness. I don't like how soft and tarnish-prone silver bullion is (or how soft gold bullion is – it can also be hardened by SPD).

[Bimetallic]

4 hours ago, Martlet said:

It does seem to me that 999 silver creates problems, notably milk spotting, for little advantage over a lightly doctored alloy.   It seems to me they followed the 999 pureness of gold, which is widely exempt from taxes and recognised for bullion as too soft for practical applications.  However this exemption isn't followed, as pure silver still has good industrial purpose so treated as industrial commodity.  Some carefully chosen alloy would help and I dont think bother the bullion investor. 

Some countries exempt silver bullion from VAT/GST, but they tend to stipulate a fineness like 999 or 995. (Examples I know of are Singapore and New Zealand, and Singapore requires it to be from a refiner on the Good Delivery list.) So that's one disadvantage of an alloy unless we could get those laws reformed. (All the Brits here really need to do something about their silver VAT laws – it's ridiculous.)

All these laws are poorly designed. Governments shouldn't care about a product's fineness, and they shouldn't vaguely define bullion the way they do now. They should just exempt precious metal content from tax up to a certain percentage over its spot/melt value. So say 105 or 110% of spot would be exempt from tax, and any increment over that would be taxed, which would catch the numismatic and jewelry premiums, while leaving the metal alone as a money-like investment product.