World Silver Prices

The price of silver in the world has been rising at a fast pace this year and has impacted upon the cost/price of silver jewellery. Below is a graph showing the increase in price over the last 5 years:

 

You will see that the price of silver has increased approximately four-fold over the past 5 years!

As a seller of silver marcasite jewellery this has obviously had a significant impact upon our costs - QT Silver Website - and also our prices. Whilst we have done our best to keep price increases to a minimum it is inevitable that prices have risen over time.

Given the current supply and demand situation with silver it is extremely unlikely that the upward trend will not continue. Silver has unique qualities as a metal that has seen the demand for its use in the fields of electronics and medical supplies grow significantly in recent years. On the supply side there do not appear to be significant silver finds taking place so demand has been out-stripping supply, which inevitably leads to an increase in the price.

If you are reading this blog then you are likely to be a fan of marcasite jewellery and therefore are likely to own some silver jewellery. The increase in world silver prices will mean that the value of some of your old pieces will have been increasing in recent years. Now may be the time to have a hunt around for any old silver/marcasite jewellery that you may have forgotten about and make sure you give it a good clean and store them more carefully! Silver oxidises when in contact with the air so will tarnish. It is, therefore, best to keep your silver jewellery in sealed plastic bags, keep away from the damp and away from direct sunlight.

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.