The silver purity guide.

01 · The short answer

What must a silver buyer actually know?

Four ideas, and you can walk into any showroom on equal terms. First, silver is graded by fineness: 925 is 92.5% pure, 999 is 99.9% pure, and those numbers describe the metal, not the marketing. Second, honest silver is priced by weight — the day's spot rate per gram, times the grams in your hand, plus a stated making charge. Third, purity is proven by a BIS hallmark, which in India is voluntary for silver, so who you buy from matters. Fourth, plated is not pure — a whisper of silver over base metal is a different object entirely.

That is the whole game. Everything else — density, tarnish, making charges, certificates — is detail that hangs off those four pegs. This page is the hub: below are the three guides that explain each idea in full, in the order a first-time buyer should meet them, and a glossary for the words in between. Read top to bottom and you will finish knowing more about silver purity than most people who sell it.

We write this as a plated-silver studio that says so plainly, so we will not pretend to be neutral about honest labelling — but we will always show our working. Where a claim rests on a number, the number is here, and the deeper guide is one click away.

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Fineness, weight, hallmark, plated-or-not. Learn those four words and no one can sell you a story instead of silver.

Atelier note · 2026

02 · The map

How should you read this guide?

Three guides and a glossary sit beneath this hub. The first teaches you the two numbers; the second, the difference between plated and solid; the third, how to check a piece with your own hands. Follow them in this order and each answers a question the one before it raises. The glossary is there whenever a word stops you.

1. 01925 vs 999 silver — the honest guideStart here. The two numbers, what the 7.5% copper actually does, and which grade belongs on your shelf versus in your hand.
2. 02Silver-plated vs pure silverThe difference that catches most first-time buyers: a few microns of silver over brass versus solid metal all the way through.
3. 03How to check silver at homeThe magnet, the ice cube, the cloth and the loupe — the quick tests that catch obvious fakes before you part with money.
4. 04The silver glossaryEvery term on this page and the three guides, defined in a sentence or two: fineness, hallmark, HUID, plated, oxidised, urli, shagun and the rest.

03 · The money

How is silver priced, and what is “real” silver?

Silver, unlike a branded handbag, has a floor price you can look up. The metal in a piece is worth the day's spot rate per gram multiplied by its weight, and everything above that is making charge — the craft, the finishing, the design. A seller who can quote the spot rate and the weight separately is a seller with nothing to hide; a single mysterious sticker price is a reason to ask questions. Our weight and pricing guide hands you the calculator and the arithmetic so you can do the sum in the showroom.

This is also where the biggest trap sits. “Silver” on a price tag can mean solid metal — or a few microns of silver electroplated over brass, worth a fraction of what it looks. A plated tray might carry 2–3% of the melt value of a solid one of the same size. Plating is legitimate for decorative volume, but it is a different category, and our guide to silver-plated versus pure silver shows you how to tell them apart before, not after, you pay.

For occasions that turn on the metal itself — a Dhanteras coin bought for the evening of Friday 6 November 2026, an anniversary plaque, a wedding token meant to be kept — that liquidity is the whole point. A 999 coin returns close to the day's spot rate if it is ever melted; a plated object returns effectively nothing.

04 · The proof

How do you know a piece is what it claims?

Proof comes in two layers. The formal layer is the BIS hallmark, stamped to the IS 2112 standard, recording the fineness on the metal so it can be re-tested by any assaying centre. Because silver hallmarking in India is voluntary — the mandatory regime that began in 2021 covers gold — the presence of a hallmark on silver tells you something about the maker's standards, not merely their compliance.

The informal layer is what you can do yourself in thirty seconds. Real silver is not magnetic, so a magnet that grabs is a warning. Silver is the most thermally conductive of all metals, so an ice cube set on it melts visibly faster than on steel. A soft cloth rubbed across genuine silver lifts a faint grey mark. None of these is conclusive alone, but together — as our guide to checking silver at home lays out — they catch the obvious fakes long before a laboratory is needed.

Here is our position, without a fence to sit on: whoever you buy from, make them tell you in writing whether a piece is solid or plated, and what the base metal is. If a seller will not put that in the quote, treat the piece as decorative until proven otherwise. For the avoidance of doubt about our own work: Nazarana does not sell solid or hallmarked silver. Every piece we make, the largest pieces included, is silver-plated over a base metal, and we say so on the product page, in the quote and on the invoice. This guide exists so you can hold any seller to the same standard — us included.

05 · At home

Why does silver carry so much weight in an Indian home?

Because it turns up at nearly every threshold of family life. Silver is what many families buy on Dhanteras, two days before Diwali. It is the bowl and spoon for a baby's first rice at annaprashan, the coin pressed into a hand as shagun, the pieces packed into a bride's trousseau, the plate and diya on the puja shelf, and the gift that marks a twenty-fifth anniversary. In Indian astrology it is the metal of the moon, which is part of why it is read as calm, cooling and auspicious.

That is also why purity gets asked about so often. A piece that marks one of those moments is expected to be passed on, and a family that is going to hand something down wants to know what it is made of. Solid silver tarnishes on the surface and can be polished back for generations. Plated silver can last a long time with gentle care, but the layer is thin, and a piece that is scrubbed hard or handled daily will eventually show the metal underneath.

Neither is the wrong choice; they are different choices. If the point is metal value that can be weighed and resold, buy hallmarked solid silver from a jeweller who weighs it in front of you. If the point is an object made to be looked at and kept, with care in the form and the finish, plated work answers that brief honestly, provided it is sold as plated. How to care for your silver covers keeping either kind looking right.