Storing your jewellery
When storing your sterling silver jewellery you want to avoid scratching the jewellery piece and you want to minimise the oxidation process. It would be best to store your sterling silver jewellery in an air tight container lined with something soft. The less air exposed to will slow the oxidation and the soft lining with avoid scratches.
Cleaning
Interestingly, wearing your jewellery is a good way to help keep it in good condition providing you take some measure of care while wearing your jewellery. Notwithstanding all of the above, your sterling silver jewellery does need to be cleaned from time to time. This is where it is important to understand your piece of jewellery. Does your jewelry have gemstones mounted within the jewellery piece or otherwise attached to gemstones? What's good for the silver may not be good for the gemstones or other items such as leather or jewellers cord. If possible it may be helpful to separate your jewellery piece when cleaning. Don't go too far with this idea. If the stone is mounted, leave it alone. If your necklace is tied together with cord or leather it may be ok to separate. Know what cleaners are best for each piece of your jewellery. Find a cleaner that can clean the whole piece without hurting one of the elements of your jewelry piece. Common cleaning methods include warm water and mild dish soap. use a soft toothbrush or cotton swab. Frequent hand polishing with a soft cloth is also helpful. There are many commercially developed cleaners for sale that will work well but it is important to know the side effects of the cleaner, what it will work on and what it won't work on. Keep in mind the various parts of your jewellery piece. Gemstones react different to cleaners than does silver. Last note: Enjoy your sterling silver jewellery. Wear it often and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!
Sterling silver jewellery information & History
Silver is known by the mankind since Pre-History, and its discovery is estimated happened to shortly after that of copper and gold. The oldest reference to the element appears in the book of Genesis. The Egyptians considered gold to be a perfect metal, and gave it the symbol of a circle. Since silver was the closest to gold in perfection, it was given the symbol of a semi-circle. Later this semi-circle led to a growing moon symbol, probably due to the likeness between the shining metal and the moon glow. The Romans called silver argentum, keeping this as the international name of the element, from where its chemical symbol derives.
Just as gold, silver was considered by the Ancients an almost sacred metal and consequently, of extremely restricted use. Its malleability and ductility make it ideal for ornamental purposes. It was also used for paying debts, in personal and religious places decoration and in utensils of the wealthiest houses.
Some mineral scums in old mines of the Near-East and in some islands of the Aegean sea seem to reveal that by 5000 b.C. a method was already known to separate silver from lead. The gold and the silver were extracted from its ores and bonded to lead. After oxidation of this mixture, it was possible to obtain the precious metals.
People first mined silver in the Bronze Age, for jewellery. Silver was pretty easy to find all over Europe and West Asia. The big problem was, silver ore (the rocks that had silver in them) generally also had lead in it, so that lead mining and silver mining were the same thing. But lead is very poisonous, so the men who were mining the silver were also being poisoned by the lead. Most lead-and-silver miners died of lead poisoning in two or three years. Because of this, most free men wouldn't work in the mines, and so they forced slaves to work in the mines instead.
One famous silver mine was Laurion, near Athens in Greece. About 500 BC, the Athenians found an enormous silver mine right near Athens, on land that belonged to the government. This mine was what paid to build Athens' first navy, and helped Athens to become a powerful city-state.
Another famous set of mines were in southern Spain. These mines were already being worked in the Bronze Age. After the First Punic War, in the 250's BC, the Carthaginians took over these mines and used the income from them to pay the money the Romans demanded. Then in the Second Punic War the Romans took over these mines and used the money they got from the mines to pay for more conquests.
Occurence
The main silver mineral is the argentite (Ag2S), which usually occurs associated to other sulfides as copper or lead sulfide. Other silver minerals are cerargirite (AgCl), proustite (3Ag2S.Ag2S3), pirargirite (3Ag2S.Sb2S3), stefanite (5Ag2S.Sb2S3) and native silver. The silver occurs in most of the lead and copper ores, and associated to cobalt and gold arsenide. Most of the produced silver is a by-product of the extraction process of these metals. However there are some mines specially devoted to the extraction of this element.
The largest world producers of silver are the USA, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, former-USSR, Australia and Germany.