According to A&E director Adam Wittig, the white metal, Argentium, provided the industry with two major benefits that would help to reduce labour and costs for jewellers.
“The first is that it does not get firescale [red or purple staining] during production, which is always a problem with any manufacturing of sterling silver.
“The second is that it is highly tarnish resistant. This means that plating of silver products can largely be done away with, which of course saves time and money but also means that many embarrassing problems that can arise with sterling
silver due to customer dissatisfaction can be avoided.”
The metal has been available in the United Kingdom for a number of years; however, A&E only recently approached Argentium International about exclusively producing the alloy in Australia after experiencing its benefits firsthand.
“As soon as we cast Argentium in any quantity in our factory we were convinced that this was a vastly superior product to any silver alloy we had cast before,” Wittig said. “Right from the minute it comes out of the continuous casting machine it is clean and bright with a good grain structure.”
Since obtaining the license to manufacture Argentium in Australia, the metal supplier has begun producing alloys including Argentium 935 and Argentium Pro, which is the casting alloy, plus Argentium solders.
The alloys are said to have a minimum 93.5 per cent silver content – compared with 92.5 per cent found in sterling silver.
As part of its push into the local market, A&E recently appointed Palloys Group as the exclusive casting house.
Palloys Group production manager Steve Lowden said the introduction of the metal would revolutionise silver jewellery production in the Australian and New Zealand market.
“Argentium’s superior properties can and will reduce manufacturing time, labour and costs for jewellers,” Lowden said.
Argentium casts will be available for order from June this year.
When asked if A&E was planning on appointing other suppliers, Wittig responded, “We are currently trialling Argentium with other manufacturers and plan to end up with an extensive group of manufacturers that can supply Argentium jewellery products.”
Although it is still in its infancy, Wittig says that the response to Argentium has been positive.
“The main thing to remember is that Argentium is slightly different to use and so requires some different handling to sterling silver,” he said.
“With this in mind we will be conducting training in the use of Argentium over the coming months, and we will have more on this very soon.”
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