What is the difference between silver plated and pure silver?

Silver-plated means a very thin layer of silver — typically 3 to 20 microns, thinner than a human hair — has been electroplated onto a cheaper base metal such as brass, copper, or steel, or bonded onto resin. Pure silver, graded 999, is solid silver all the way through, 99.9% fine. The first is priced by its design and finish; the second is priced by its weight in metal. They look alike on a shelf and behave completely differently over time.

How can I tell if something is silver plated or pure silver?

Four quick checks. First, weight: solid silver is dense at 10.49 g/cc, so a pure piece feels noticeably heavier than a plated or resin-cored one of the same size. Second, look for a stamp — a genuine 999 or BIS hallmark, usually on the base. Third, a magnet: pure silver is not magnetic, so a fridge magnet that grips the piece means a steel core underneath. Fourth, ask for a certificate of authenticity that states the fineness. Plated gifts rarely survive all four.

Is silver plated jewellery or a gift worth buying?

Yes, for the right purpose. A well-made silver-plated piece looks handsome, costs a fraction of solid silver, and suits high-volume gifting where the recipient values the design more than the melt value. What matters is that it is sold honestly as plated — not passed off at solid-silver prices. Much of the 'silver gift' market sells plated brass or resin at silver-looking prices, and that is the practice worth guarding against.

Does silver plating wear off?

Over years of handling, yes — the thin silver layer can gradually wear at the edges and high points, revealing the yellower brass or grey base beneath. This is why plated pieces are best kept for display or occasional use rather than daily wear. Solid 999 silver never wears through to another metal, because there is no other metal; it only ever develops a soft surface patina that polishes away.

Why is pure silver so much more expensive than silver plated?

Because you are buying the metal itself, by weight. A pure 999 piece is priced as rupees per gram at the day's silver rate, plus a making charge, plus 3% GST — so a heavier piece simply costs more. A plated piece contains only microns of silver over a cheap base, so its price reflects the design and craftsmanship, not the metal. That is why solid pieces start higher and plated gifts start from ₹1,500.

Does Nazarana Silver sell solid silver?

No. Every Nazarana piece is silver-plated over a base metal — brass, copper or, on a few pieces, aluminium — and is described that way on the product page, in the quote and on the invoice. We do not sell solid or hallmarked silver, and we never quote a plated item at solid-silver prices. If a piece is the centrepiece of an occasion we will point you at the largest pieces, which is larger and more intricate — but it is plated too, and we say so.

Issue 16 · Summer 2026Series · Purity & Provenance

NThe Journal

Trust8 minute read · 1,900 words

असली चाँदीOn telling real from plated

Silver plated vs pure silver — the honest difference.

The short version: they are not two grades of the same thing. Silver-plated is a whisker of silver — often just 3 to 20 microns — bonded over a base metal, and priced by its design and scale, from ₹1,500. Solid silver is priced by weight. Tell them apart in seconds — by heft, a stamp, a magnet. And so you know where we stand: everything Nazarana makes is silver-plated.

Paridhi Kompella · Founder14 July 2026

Hero -- two near-identical silver bowls side by side, one solid 999 with a hallmark, one plated brass, one tipped to show the yellow base at a worn edge

Photo· Two bowls that look identical. One is solid 999; the other is plated brass. Only the hallmark and the heft tell you which.

01 · The two things

What is silver-plated, and what is pure silver?

They are not two grades of the same thing — that is the confusion the market quietly relies on. Silver-plated means a very thin skin of silver, often just 3 to 20 microns, has been electroplated onto a cheaper base: brass, copper, nickel, steel, or even a resin casting given a metal shell. Pure silver, graded 999, is solid silver all the way through, 99.9% fine. One is a costume; the other is the metal.

A micron is a thousandth of a millimetre. A human hair is roughly 70 microns across. So the silver on a typical plated gift is a fraction of a hair thick — enough to catch the light beautifully on the day it is unwrapped, not enough to be worth anything by weight. Nearly the entire object, underneath, is base metal you would never buy on its own.

This matters because a great deal of what is sold as a “silver gift” in India is plated brass or resin dressed to look like solid silver — and priced closer to solid silver than the few microns of metal could ever justify. The piece photographs like an heirloom. It is, in truth, a well-finished souvenir. There is nothing wrong with that, provided you are told which one you are buying.

Solid 999 sits in a different world. It is soft, dense, and honest: what you hold is what you own, and its value tracks the silver rate rather than the marketing. It can be melted, re-tested, and re-valued decades later. A plated piece cannot — there is almost nothing there to melt.

“
Plated silver is priced by how it looks. Pure silver is priced by what it weighs. The trouble starts when the first is sold at the price of the second.
Atelier note · 2026

02 · In the hand

How can you tell them apart in seconds?

You do not need a laboratory. Four checks, done at the counter, will catch almost every plated piece dressed as solid silver. We walk buyers through them constantly, and we lay them out in full in our guide to how to check silver at home.

Start with the weight in your hand. Solid silver is dense — 10.49 grams per cubic centimetre — while brass is around 8.5 and resin is a fraction of that. Pick up two bowls of the same size and the pure one sits heavier, almost surprisingly so. A “silver” idol that feels light for its bulk is very likely hollow, plated, or resin-cored.

Then look for a stamp. Genuine solid silver carries a mark — 999, 925, or a BIS hallmark — usually pressed into the base or an inside edge. No stamp is not proof of a fake, but on a piece being sold at solid-silver prices, its absence is a question worth asking out loud. For what the marks mean, our silver purity guide reads the fineness numbers in plain English.

Next, a magnet. Pure silver is not magnetic, so a fridge magnet will slide off. If it grips, there is a steel or iron core beneath the plating. This test is honest but partial — brass and copper cores are also non-magnetic, so a magnet clears them wrongly. That is precisely why weight and a stamp still matter. Finally, ask for a certificate of authenticity stating the fineness. A seller of solid silver can produce one; a seller of plated gifts, honestly, cannot.

WeightPure 999: dense, 10.49 g/cc. Plated: light for its size — brass ~8.5, resin far less.
StampPure: a 999 / 925 / BIS hallmark on the base. Plated: usually unmarked, or marked 'EPNS' / 'silver plated'.
MagnetPure: never sticks. Plated: sticks if the core is steel — but brass cores fool this test.
WearPure: never wears through. Plated: rubs to a yellow or grey base at edges over years.
CertificatePure: comes with one stating fineness. Plated: rarely, if ever.

The solid stuff · the collections

When the piece is the whole gift — the larger pieces in the range.

Each statement piece is silver-plated over a base metal, hand-finished, photographed as it is, and confirmed in writing before it ships. Larger and more intricate than the core range — and labelled honestly, which is the whole point of this article.

See the collections →

03 · Price

Why is one priced by design and the other by weight?

This is the heart of it, and once you see it you can never un-see it. A silver-plated piece is priced by its design — the form, the finish, the craft of the base and the quality of the plating. The few microns of silver are almost incidental to the cost. That is why a beautifully finished plated gift can be honest, useful, and affordable, starting from ₹1,500. You are paying for how it looks and how it is made, not for a store of metal.

Solid 999 is priced the opposite way — by weight. The formula is transparent: rupees per gram at the day's silver rate, plus a making charge for the form, plus 3% GST. A heavier piece simply costs more, because there is more silver in it. A 200-gram bowl at a spot rate near ₹280 per gram is roughly ₹56,000 in metal alone, before making and tax. Nothing about that number is a mystery, and nothing about it is marketing.

The abuse to watch for is the piece that is priced like solid silver but built like plate. If a “silver” idol the size of your palm is being sold for a solid-silver sum yet weighs a third of what solid silver that size should, you are paying metal prices for a costume. The four checks in the previous section exist precisely to stop that. When a plated piece is priced as plate, everyone wins; the problem is only ever the mismatch.

04 · Which one

So which should you buy — and what do we sell?

Our position is not that plated is bad and pure is good. It is that each has an honest use, and the buyer deserves to know which is which. Choose silver-plated when the design is the gift — a decorative platter for a large guest list, a return gift where the gesture and the look matter more than the melt value, a piece meant to be admired rather than banked. A good plated gift, sold as plated, is a fine thing.

Choose solid 999 when the piece is meant to be kept, valued, or handed down — a Dhanteras coin, an idol for the pooja room, a wedding gift, anything you would want to re-value or pass on in thirty years. It costs more because it is worth more, in the most literal sense: it holds silver by weight and passes the hallmark cleanly.

And here is where we stand. Nazarana sells silver-plated work — all of it. Every piece is a base metal, brass or copper or occasionally aluminium, under a silver layer, and we describe it that way on the product page, in the quote and on the invoice. We do not sell solid silver, we do not hallmark, and we do not price plated work as though you were buying metal by weight. The largest pieces is our largest and most intricate work, not a different metal. Saying which is which is the whole difference, and it is the whole promise.

End of piece

1,900 words · 8 minutes

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