What does
“.925” really mean?
You probably own something in .925 silver.
Maybe you're even wearing it right now.
But if you've ever spotted that little 925 stamped on the back of a ring, a charm, or a chain and weren't quite sure what it meant, you're not the only one.
925 isn't a model number, a category brands made up, or a fancy way of saying “silver.”
It's literally a ratio.
01 / So what is .925 silver, exactly?
.925 silver — better known as sterling silver — is 92.5% pure silver.
The remaining 7.5% is made up of other metals, usually copper.
And that small percentage exists for a pretty practical reason: pure silver is a relatively soft, malleable metal.
That's wonderful for working the metal, but it's not always ideal for a piece of jewelry meant to go everywhere with you, every day.
Turning it into a .925 alloy gives us a material that keeps an extremely high silver content, but with the added strength to become rings, charms, bracelets, chains, and all those small things we end up carrying with us for years.
That 7.5% isn't there to take value away from the silver.
It's there to help it become jewelry.
02 / How do I know if something is .925 silver?
One of the first clues is, quite literally, stamped right onto the piece.
In jewelry, it's common to find hallmarks like 925, .925, or Sterling, referring to the purity of the silver used.
You may also find the mark of whoever made or stands behind the piece.
It's a small way of keeping a record of two things: what it's made of, and where it comes from.
That said, a stamp alone doesn't replace a professional metal test. A piece's composition can only be verified with certainty through assay testing.
At Nuve, we hallmark our pieces with our own brand mark and .925: a small imprint that speaks to who made the piece and what it's made of.
04 / Silver changes
And this part matters: it doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong with it.
Over time, silver can lose some of its shine, shift slightly in tone, or even darken.
This happens because it can react with sulfur compounds in the air, forming a thin surface layer of silver sulfide — what's commonly known as tarnish.
In sterling silver, the copper in the alloy plays a role too. Humidity, the environment, whatever products a piece comes into contact with, and how it's stored can all speed up or slow down that process.
That's why two identical pieces won't necessarily age in exactly the same way.
We like to think of silver as a living material.
05 / A piece that lives with you
Not because it's literally alive.
But because it doesn't stay completely indifferent to the life happening around it.
You wear it. You touch it. You put it away. It travels with you. It comes into contact with your skin, the air, and the elements.
And it changes.
A piece someone has worn for years can end up telling that story through small scratches, shifts in shine, and marks that an identical piece will never have.
For us, that doesn't necessarily take away from its value.
It adds history.
06 / If it turns black, is it fake?
No.
In fact, genuine silver can darken.
That surface tarnishing is part of this metal's normal behavior under certain conditions, and in many cases, it can be cleaned to bring back much of its original look.
If you want to know how we store, clean, and care for our pieces, we put together a specific guide on caring for silver.
Silver, all the way through.
When we talk about .925 silver, we're talking about an alloy that's 92.5% silver, all the way through.
Silver only on the surface.
A silver-plated piece can be made from a different base metal with just a thin layer of silver applied on top. At a glance they can look similar when new, but they're not the same material.