Solid silver

A commonly asked question is “What is Solid silver?” When talking about bullion and coins, the terms purity, quality, fineness, and solid silver sometimes get interchanged. It's also a common phrase to hear when talking about jewellery and antiquities, and can occasionally be misused or misunderstood.

Technically speaking, for something to truly be solid silver, then the entire item should be pure silver. A fine silver bar of 999 or higher for example is solid silver. This 99.9% purity means that of the entire weight of the bar or coin, 99.9% of it would be silver, and the remainder of another metal (typically copper). This would still be a solid silver bar, or solid silver coin.

If an item was plated, then that would certainly discount any claims of being solid silver. Similarly if the item was not high purity, then realistically it should not be considered as solid, as there may be small or large amounts of other metals.

---

Solid Silver purity

Solid silver purity should be considered as 999 fineness. As mentioned above this would 99.9% pure, which may also be known as the fineness. Below are some of the key purity figures associated with silver items. The top would be true solid silver, but the others may be called solid silver as well given their high purity, ensuring that at least 90% or higher of the entire item is indeed made from silver.

• 999 = Pure Silver
• 958 = Britannia Silver
• 925 = Sterling Silver (1852 – 1920)
• 900 = Minimum requirement for bullion silver

If something isn’t solid silver then this will likely mean one of two things: either the product is .500 silver (as was commonplace between 1920 & 1947) or the core of the product is another metal and has then been coated in silver via a method, such as electroplating. This will likely be done for cost purposes, using a cheaper metal for size and weight and then using the silver to produce a nice finish for the outside of the product.

All the silver coins and silver bars provided by us at BullionByPost will be solid silver.