Tag: Silver Findings

Silver Fill versus Sterling Silver

The patent on Gold Fill (process which is the same as Silver Fill) was filed in 1900 in Providence Rhode Island, the birthplace of the costume jewelry industry in the United States.

Patent for Gold Fill

In case you weren’t clear on Silver Fill versus Sterling Silver, our Silver Findings are produced from either Silver Ingot or Silver Pebbles which are melted in the process before they are squashed, rolled, squeezed and otherwise manipulated into all those tiny round balls, earwires, charms, tubes or whatever you can think of.

Silver Fill seems an inaccurate name as you can clear see, there is no fill, that is the base metal, the silver sits on the outside.

Example of Silver Fill 1/20 and 1/10

Silver-filled, like gold-filled, consists of precious metal (silver) bonded to a base metal substrate (a red brass alloy, CDA #220). The 1/20 and 1/10 notation refers to the ratio of silver to brass core by weight, which is 5% and 10%, respectively.

The value of silver-filled is greater than silver-plated because silver-filled has an actual layer of sterling silver. The minimum thickness for silver plating is equal to 0.5 microns.

In 1/10 silver-filled, 10% of the total weight of the metal is silver.

In 1/20 silver-filled, 5% of the total weight of the metal is silver.

In single-clad sheet, the silver layer is bonded to one side of the sheet of brass.

In double-clad sheet, discs and other findings, silver layers are bonded to both sides of the sheet of brass.

The patent remains with US producers for Silver Fill and Gold Fill, so even when we buy some of our findings directly from our manufacturers in Italy, they actually trade materials with the US. So forget tariffs, forget International Trade Agreements….the metals houses have their own balance sheets and trading rules. And many of them hold patents on processes. (We’ll write more on that later.)

Melting Silver in Vicenza

Silver Fill became popular when the price of silver soared above $48.00, clearly it was less expensive to use a base metal and silver of only ~10% of the weight. So to meet the demand, Silver Fill findings were produced.

Silver Soared over $40

As you can see now silver fluctuates around $15 which means that the additional work required to bond the silver to the base metal negates real savings.

So once again Silver is popular and many of our suppliers have discontinued the Silver Fill in favor of Silver. When they discontinue Silver Fill, we will also as we sell out the existing inventory.

A place for everything, and everything in its place?

Murano Glass Bead Trays – Barcoded & Priced in Color Waves

‘A place for everything, and everything in its place.’ is the famous quote by Isabella Mary Beeton in her book of Household Management written in 1861. It’s a great philosophy, but with some 20,000 SKUs, it’s easier said than done.

When we began importing Murano Glass Beads, we named them after the bead maker, their children, vaporetto boat stops, favorite cafes. Our bead makers named the designs after artists, famous names in Venice which encouraged our lack of organization. We had only a few drawers of beads. But over time we grew! Tanya took on our beads as a project in her senior year in Business Management at the University. So began our ‘semi-intelligent’ SKU assignment.

Venetian Beads – Melanie Picking Orders

But the physical location of beads in an orderly fashion took a few more years. We all remembered where items were stored by sheer memory. And I confess to loving how the beads looked in drawers so I could see all the colors of a style when I opened the drawer. And seeing bunches of beads together made it easy to design jewelry. But it became apparent that it made for inefficient storage. Then we began the Location/SKU assignment and bar coding. This was key when we went to lots of bead shows, as we couldn’t remember prices for 800 pounds of beads we took to shows and sometimes exhibiting at 2 shows at the same time. Our bar coding let us check customers out quickly, accurately, giving them an itemized list of what they bought, along with SKUs for reordering online…certainly a novelty in a bead shows.

Locations and Alpha-Numerical Makes Picking Orders is Easier
Picking Orders – For All of You!

Picking is made easy with our rolling carts with all the supplies you need to pack an order. We all have our favorite cart!

Venetian Glass Beads, Organized

These little white cubicle boxes are where orders with problems go. This is not where you want your orders to linger. We send emails through our online store system to you or call to let you know.

This is not where you want your order to go! The problem boxes.

There’s more, we’re just trying to organize it. There are always the “orphans” the beads that have no mates, the I thought I ordered Red, how did these green beads arrive? And many other projects just waiting to be put on the web. And an abundance of design projects in various stages of completion.

So maybe we’d better read Mrs. Beeton’s book, again! ;>)

Visit our website where you can buy all these wonderful beads! http://www.venetianbeadshop.com

 

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