Silver

“You don’t need a Silver fork to eat good food”, but you definitely need a silver fork to eat in style. Silver is a soft white metallic element known since ancient times. The name Silver was derived from the Anglo-Saxon word “Siolfur”. The symbol of this metal is ‘Ag’, the abbreviation for the Latin word ‘Argentum’, which means ‘Silver’. Silver is a soft, impressionable and pliable metal with the ability of high degree polish. Silver is known to be one of the ‘noble’ metals because it cannot be easily oxidized. It is used for making coins, jewelry, crockery and other various articles and symbolizes wealth and class.

Silver exists in several forms like crystals, flakes, dust, granule, mesh, bars and foil etc. The major sources of Silver are gold, copper, lead and lead-zinc. It is found in its native form combined with sulfur, arsenic, antimony, chlorine and several other ores.

There are several notable characteristics of Silver. Electricity and thermal conductivity of pure Silver is higher than any other metal. It has the maximum visual reflectivity with lowest contact resistance. Few properties of Silver are listed below.

Silver is mostly used for making coins and jewelries. Silver coins were the only form of money used in the ancient time. Women are obsessed by the beautifully curved Silver earrings, necklaces and bangles. Silver jewelries are also very popular among men. Silver medals are used for denoting second place. Other products made of Silver include crockery, musical instruments, show pieces and several other objects. Silver is used in photography and also in preparing certain medicines.

More than 15% of the annual world production of Silver comes from Mexico. Mexico is the largest producer of Silver in the whole world. Other countries include Canada, Peru, Australia, United States etc.