Types of Silver

There are several different types of “Silver”;

1. Sterling silver is the main type of silver used in jewellery, ornaments & dinnerware today. This is solid silver. Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% metal alloy. Sterling silver is usually now hallmarked as “925”. Our own websites - libramarcasite.com and marcasitethailand.com both only sell 925/sterling silver items as does our UK retail site qtsilver.com

2. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver and is normally considered too soft to use for most items. It is also solid silver.

3. Plated Silver. Silver plating is common and sometimes dishonest sellers try to pass this off as sterling silver (a practice that has made many wary of dealing with companies in Hong Kong and mainland China, where the practice has been quite prevalent). It’s also call electroplated silver or silver coated as well. Silver plated items are made using a base metal, normally brass or nickel, which is then put through an electroplating process. Electroplating is a process which adheres a very very thin layer of pure silver onto the base metal. The result is a sterling silver looking item at a much reduced price. It may look like sterling silver but the silver plating tends to wear off quite quickly exposing the often unattractive base metal.

4. Alpaca Silver or German Silver is not actually silver at all. It is a greyish looking alloy which resembles silver. It is sometimes referred to as nickel silver, paktong, and new silver. It is also used as a base for silver plated items because of its appearance. If you want real silver, stay away from this. Also, beware of sellers selling this as “fine jewellery” to consumers that don’t know the difference between sterling silver and alpaca silver.

5. Mexican Silver is silver is used to describe silver made in Mexico. It must have more than 90% pure silver content to be Mexican silver. Most silver jewellery from Mexico today is actually 925/sterling silver.

6. Britannia Silver has a pure silver content of 95.85% and no more than 4.16% copper. This silver is marked in the U.K. and Ireland as "958 silver." It is an even more pure form of silver than sterling silver. Hence it’s higher value. This grade of silver is far less common than sterling / 925 silver.

New Thai Based Retail Site

I have now completed my new retail website - MarcasiteThailand.com - which, as the name suggests, is Thailand based. The quality of the marcasite jewellery is exceptional and the prices are, without doubt, the best anywhere on the internet.

Wholesale Marcasite

Having had to abandon my own UK based wholesale site - due to having to move to Thailand to care for my wife - I have spent the last few weeks assisting QTSilver.com's long-term supplier (Libra Jewelry Co Ltd) set up their own wholesale site - libramarcasite.com. The site will develop in time as more and more designs become available for sale.

Since being in Thailand I have been amazed at how many different designs are available for production by Libra Jewelry, more than 4,000! The difficulty lies in deciding which designs to produce.

Over time Libra Jewelry are looking to have the largest range of wholesale marcasite available on the internet. Through specialising in marcasite only it is possiblle to offer wholesale customers a far greater range than normal silver jewelry wholesalers who usually just have marcasite as a small part of their overall range. Libra also offer the facility for customers who are interested in purchasing larger quantities (50 pieces per design) to have their items made to order.

Auctiva for Ebay Listing

We have recently started selling on Ebay.com, supplying direct from Thailand to the USA and Europe. Prices for auctions will be starting at a very low level and P&P will also be at a minimum, so if you do not mind a wait (shipping times vary from 5 to 14 days from Thailand) you could pick up some real bargains. The Ebay.com listings can be found in "items for sale" on the marcasite_thailand My world page on Ebay.com;

http://myworld.ebay.com/marcasite_thailand

Hopefully things will go as well as they have for our UK listings, which can be found at;

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/QT-Silver

One thing that we are doing a little differently with our approach to Ebay.com is that we are using Auctiva - a company that provides listing and hosting services for Ebay sellers. The experience so far has been very positive and although you need to do a reasonable amount of work setting up listings, importing pictures etc. the time savings for the future should be significant, as you can host an unlimited number of listings. This will be hugely beneficial to us as we have many, many designs and having to constantly recreate listings on Ebay can be very time consuming.

If our experience with using Auctiva for our marcasite_thailand Ebay.com account continues to be good then I can envisage that we will begin using them for our already well established UK Ebay busines.

UK Ring Size Table

Ring Size UK	Size mm
G	45.5
H	46.7
I	48
J	48.7
K	49.9
L	51.2
M	52.5
N	53.8
O	55
P	56.3
Q	57.6
R	58.9
S	60.1
T	61.4
U	62.7
V	64
W	65.2
X	66.5
Y	67.8
Z	68.4

Measuring Your Ring Size

One of the most common questions I have had since starting selling marcasite jewellery online is "I am not sure of my rings size, how can I find what it is?".

Below is a quick guide as to how you can measure your own ring size and also a few tips to ensure that the measurement is as accurate as possible.

1. Find a piece of string (or a thin stip of paper - no wide than 1/2").
2. Wrap it around the base of the appropriate finger.
3. Use a pen to mark the point on the string/paper where it overlaps, forming a complete circle.
4. With a ruler, measure the length from the starting end of the string/paper to the pen mark.
5. Use this measurement and a ring size chart to determine your ring size.

Tips to improve the measurements accuracy;

* Don't measure cold fingers. This is when fingers are their smallest.

* For the most accurate reading, measure the finger at the end of the day when the finger is the largest.

Valentines Day Marcasite

With Valentines day rapidly approaching marcasite with a heart theme is beginning to sell very quickly. Whether it be lockets, rings, pendants or earrings, the heart theme is always popular at this time of year. Here are a few examples from www.qtsilver.com;

In Thailand Now

Have been in Thailand for almost a week now and have found a small and inexpensive place to stay in Bangkok. My wife and daughter will be staying in Buriram until the school term finishes, at which point we will find Amy a school in Bangkok.

I will now be working on developing the jewellery business and hopefully finding good customers/resellers around the world, rather than predominently the UK.


Han estado en Tailandia por casi una semana y he encontrado un lugar pequeño y barato para permanecer en Bangkok. Mi esposa y su hija se alojará en Buriram hasta que termine el período escolar, momento en el que vamos a encontrar a Amy una escuela en Bangkok.

Ahora voy a estar trabajando en el desarrollo del negocio de joyería y espero encontrar buenos clientes / revendedores en todo el mundo, en lugar de predominently el Reino Unido.

Oportunidad de Negocio

Después de haber pasado ahora a Tailandia que, junto con mi viejo amigo y proveedor Petch, están buscando vendedores en los siguientes países;

USA
España
Alemania
Bélgica
Países Bajos
Sudáfrica
Canadá
Italia
Polonia

(y consideraría cualquier otro país donde hay un mercado para la calidad de la joyería marcasita)

Ya tenemos un comprador en el Reino Unido (que anteriormente corría), que vende a través de Ebay y a través de su propio sitio web;

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/QT-Silver

http://www.qtsilver.com/

También estamos cerca de lograr ventas en Australia y Francia.

Como podrás ver el funcionamiento del Reino Unido es bastante éxito - una tienda de confianza y Ebay Powerseller y un sitio web que tiene una gran clasificación en Google - la primera página para una palabra clave más importante.

Lo que estamos buscando son personas que están buscando desarrollar un negocio en un a tiempo parcial o tiempo completo. Vamos a proporcionar;

* Un gran producto
* Precios excepcionales
* Uso gratuito de nuestras imágenes (y créanme que esto ahorra una cantidad enorme de tiempo y esfuerzo!)
* Libre plantillas para anuncios de eBay, usando varias imágenes que hemos de acogida para ahorrar en las tarifas de eBay
* Cuando se estableció que le ayudará a desarrollar y promover su propio sitio web (estamos felices de realizar tareas básicas de SEO usted de forma gratuita y le aconsejará sobre la mejor manera de desarrollar su propio sitio)

Si usted está interesado por favor Iain correo electrónico a info@qtsilver.com

Business Opportunity

Having now moved to Thailand I, together with my longtime friend and supplier Petch, are looking for sellers in the following countries;

USA
Spain
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
South Africa
Canada
Italy
Poland

(and would consider any other countries where there is a market for quality marcasite jewellery)

We already have a seller in the UK (which I previously ran), who sells via Ebay and via their own website;

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/QT-Silver

http://www.qtsilver.com/

We are also close to securing sellers in Australia and France.

As you will see the UK operation is fairly succesful - an Ebay Trusted Seller and Powerseller and a website that has great rankings on Google - first page for most important keyword.

What we are looking for are people who are looking to develop a business on a part-time or full-time basis. We will provide;

* A great product
* Exceptional pricing
* Free use of our pictures (and believe me this saves a huge amount of time and effort!)
* Free templates for Ebay listings, using multiple pictures that we host so you save on Ebay fees
* When you are established we will help you develop and promote your own website (we are happy to perform basic SEO tasks for you for free and advise you as to how best develop your own site)

If you are interested please email Iain at info@qtsilver.com

Dual Language / Dos Idiomas

From now on I will be posting in both English and Spanish. The translations are courtesy of Google translate.

The reason for this is that there appears to be considerably less information on the internet regarding marcasite jewellery in the Spanish language and given the number of Spanish speaking internet users it seems sensible to post in both languages.

De ahora en adelante voy a publicar en Inglés y Español. Las traducciones son cortesía de Google Translate .

La razón de esto es que no aparece información a ser considerablemente menor en el Internet en relación con la joyería marcasita en el idioma español y dado el número de usuarios de Internet de habla española parece razonable puesto en ambos idiomas.

Moving

English;

Due to my wifes arthritis we are having to move abroad as she cannot cope with the weather here in the UK. We will be based in Thailand from around the middle of this month.

Our retail website - www.qtsilver.com - will continue to operate under new management.

I am afraid that our wholesale website has had to close, but hopefully we will be able to restart operations from Thailand, once we are settled.


Español

Debido a la artritis mis esposas que tienen que trasladarse al extranjero ya que no puede hacer frente con el clima aquí en el Reino Unido. Estaremos con sede en Tailandia desde a mediados de este mes.

Nuestro sitio web al por menor - www.qtsilver.com - continuará operando bajo una nueva administración.

Me temo que nuestro sitio web al por mayor ha tenido que cerrar, pero espero que será capaz de reiniciar las operaciones de Tailandia, una vez que se liquidan.