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, we set out the seven guides that explain each idea in full, in the order a first-time buyer should meet them. Read top to bottom and you will finish knowing more about silver purity than most people who sell it.

We write this as a pure-silver-first studio, so we will not pretend to be neutral about quality — 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?

Seven guides sit beneath this hub. The first three teach you the metal and its proof; the middle two teach you the money; the last two teach you to verify with your own hands. Follow them in this order and each answers a question the one before it raises.

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. 02BIS hallmarking, explainedHow to read the mark stamped on real silver — and why, for silver, it is a choice the maker makes rather than a law they obey.
3. 03Why silver purity mattersThe cultural and practical case: what changes for a gift, a ritual object, or an heirloom when the metal is genuinely pure.
4. 04The silver weight & pricing guideOur weight calculator and the arithmetic behind it — spot rate, grams, making charge — so you can price any piece yourself.
5. 05Silver-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.
6. 06The certificate of authenticityWhat a proper certificate records, how it works alongside the hallmark, and why the weight slip is the part people forget.
7. 07How 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.

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. Our guide to BIS hallmarking teaches you to read the mark, and the guide to the certificate of authenticity covers the paperwork that should travel with it.

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: buy silver that is hallmarked, weighed and certificated, from a maker who will show you the spot rate. If any of those three is missing, treat the piece as decorative until proven otherwise. That standard costs a little more and it is worth every rupee — which is why every piece in our Luxe 999 line ships with all three, and why we would rather lose a sale than blur the line between plated and pure.