Replating of silver rings

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A. To prevent tarnish try anti-tarnish strips. Professional quality replating can be done by jeweller. Hope it helps and good luck!

A. Hi. It's marked "925" (Sterling), so I'd presume that's what it is. Try polishing it with toothpaste and a cloth; if that doesn't fix it, take it to a jeweler who can try abrasive sticks.

Although I don't know where the copper color came from, it's not uncommon for one metal to form a very thin immersion deposit on another.

Luck & Regards,

A. Sorry, Anjelica, I don't understand what you are implying by "I have a problem with silver". Usually silver rings are solid silver rather than plated with silver. But silver tarnishes. You could have the ring rhodium plated to forestall the tarnishing.

A. Anjelica,
If the ring is marked 925 it is Sterling Silver. What that means is the ring contains 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper. Because of the copper content the ring will tarnish faster than pure silver. Pure silver is rarely used in rings because it is too soft for normal wear, that's why it is alloyed with copper or other metals. It sounds to me your body chemistry is not agreeable with Sterling, probably because of the copper alloy. A friend of mine recently had a ring Rhodium plated and it cost him $125.00, which I thought was reasonable. Keep in mind if you plan to wear the ring every day the rhodium will wear off over time. If you wear it once in awhile it could last 5-7 years, depending on what the ring is subjected to. Rhodium is the way to go however. Good Luck!

A. Anjelica,
I don't have anything against jewelry store employees, but some don't receive extensive training in precious metals. If the ring was sold as sterling silver (which it should have been) there is no finish to wear off. It is sterling through and through. There is an outside shot that an anti-tarnish was applied by the manufacturer, but not likely. Sterling silver tarnishes, what are you going to do? I agree with you that rings should be rhodium plated for people that can't wear sterling, but then again that would make it "rhodium plated sterling". Unfortunately you don't know the adverse reactions until you actually wear the ring for awhile. Good luck to you.

A. Hi, Mark. Thanks for your help.

Anjelica, people have different tastes, and tastes change as well. Some people like the classic look of tarnished silver, but today more people seem to like the glint of rhodium. It's just a matter that silver tarnishes while rhodium plating keeps it shiny. When the jeweler said the finish wore off, he may have been trying to say that the ring once had or should have had rhodium plating on it but it was tarnishing because the plating had worn off. I am quite sure it is not necessary to remove stones before plating, so replating is not difficult (but a warning to readers extrapolating from this answer: pearls are not 'stones' and there might be other exceptions). If a jeweler who does this replating is reading, please let me know if I'm in error. Good luck.

Regards,

Hi, Jerry. Thanks for the good info. I don't fully agree with you about the plating though; it's a matter of taste. Most engagement rings these days are rhodium plated. We live in an age of "bling" and there is no solid metal that has the reflectivity of rhodium plating. To many women, a diamond ring that lacks rhodium plating is dull and makes her diamonds look small.

That is not to say that rhodium plating is without issues: often neither the buyer nor the clerk even knows it's there; it always eventually wears away, which is not a nice situation for an heirloom, and it sometimes wears off way too soon; plus it allows jewelers to use white gold alloys in their rings that really aren't white enough, meaning you can't later decide to not re-plate, because the alloy they used is too yellowish or greyish to be left unplated.

Regards,

Hi Gianna. Plating is very thin and it is not structural; it won't strengthen or weaken the ring.

Sterling silver is 92.5% silver, rather than 99.9% pure, and the reason for not using pure silver is that the 7.5% of copper or other alloying metal is supposed to make it stiffer and harder so you don't experience the kind of problem you had. Sorry for your troubles, and maybe the silver is too pure and consequently too soft; so if an exchange was offered, you might take it.

But please forever continue to find your ring "gorgeous" and don't ever "afford something else" -- a recent study offered quite conclusive statistics that the more expensive the engagement ring, the shorter the marriage, perhaps because it revealed an immature focus on the wrong things :-)

Best wishes,

A. Hi Karen. There is no problem in plating the rhodium on top of the gold per se. The issue is that the rhodium will wear, and if there is silver under it, it will continue to look okay, whereas if you will see the yellow discoloration you won't like it.

If it was a broach, I'd say do it as they get little wear. If it was a ring, I'd say don't do it, it will wear through much too fast. For a bracelet, you now understand the situation and will have to make a judgement based on cost of removing the gold, how often you wear it, whether it experiences very little wear or whether it jingle jangles against itself and various surfaces. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi RaeAnn. I'm not a jeweler and not understanding why it's getting noticeably dinged up in three days, but you can have it rhodium plated (which will retain a bright silvery color) or gold plated (which will turn it yellow gold colored). But if you change the color to yellow you will need to either have a pretty heavy plating or gold, or have it frequently redone, or have a clearcoat on top of the plating because rings -- unlike earrings and broaches and stuff -- experience a great deal of wear. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Anthony. Today's "white gold" look actually involves rhodium plating over the white gold, so think a jeweler should be able to rhodium plate the sterling silver and make it look the same as white gold.

Regards,

Q. Awesome thank you, would that help with the tarnish? My biggest fear is the tarnish really quick with the sterling silver, which is why I want to plate over it.

A. Hi again. Rhodium is a precious metal and will not tarnish. Rhodium plating is often used on silver jewelry to deter tarnish. Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi. It can be gold plated again. There are probably jewelers near you to do it. When a silver ring is gold plated, the plating needs to be pretty thick because rings are very high-wear things.

Regards,

A. Hi Vivian. A jeweler can certainly grind (polish) the ring to a thinner style if you wish. Both rings should probably be rhodium plated at the same time so they match. Your diamond will look bigger, not smaller, with the rhodium plating, because people tend to see the glint not the diamond.

Regards,

  Thank you so much for the quick reply. That's exactly what I needed to know!

A. Hi Alissa. The oxidation is almost surely superficial. I am confident that a jeweler can polish it off at low cost if you can't remove it with toothpaste and a cloth.

Regards,

Yes.

Regards,

A. Hi Robert. Silver is very highly reflective, but what happens with sterling silver is that it tarnishes pretty quickly. If you stay up with using tarnish removers it can stay bright. The reason rhodium is used is that it doesn't tarnish.

Regards,

A. Hi Michelle. The ring can be replated whenever you wish with any of the white colored precious metals including platinum or rhodium. Rings are very high wear items and there is no easy way to avoid scratches, but removing it when doing things that involve your hands rubbing on hard surfaces will help.

I think, but am not sure, that "S925" has no standard meaning, so I would guess that the S means to the maker that the ring is silver and that they use a moissanite of hardness 9.25 on it. I spent just a few minutes googling, but found brilliantearth.com/news/moissanite-vs-diamond/ and the other brilliantearth.com/news/ pages very interesting.

Regards,

A. Hi Tracy. Although not every jeweler can do replating or have it done, a lot of them can, and it's not terribly expensive. The jeweler who told you what is was but didn't say that he could fix it probably did not have plating capability :-)

It's also possible that you felt that you understood what he said, but didn't quite. For example, if a jeweler says something is 'German silver' or 'Nickel silver', it has no silver in it :-)

Regards,

A. Answers to some questions:
(1) is it possible to plate sterling silver with sterling silver?
Yes, but it doesn't necessarily have a nice finish because of oxides that emit from the base metals that are alloyed with pure silver to give sterling its strength.

(2) Does this require base plating (i.e., a layer of different metal between the sterling object and sterling plating in order to make the plating stick)? I would not like to see a layer of for example copper when the sterling plating wears out.
Successful plating depends largely in correct preparation of the surface. It must be supremely clean without oxidation. Some metals are best plated with copper or nickel prior to silver plating.

(3) Does plating sterling with fine silver require base plating?
No. Silver will stick to silver as long as the surface is ultra clean.