I recently dabbled in small scale silver smithing last spring, and there’s 1-2 sterling silver alloys that have been commercially available in recent years are

I recently dabbled in small scale silver smithing last spring, and there’s 1-2 sterling silver alloys that have been commercially available in recent years are way less susceptible to tarnish. They replace some of the copper with two percent germanium (alloy trade name is Argentium ) and this sterling silver alloy gets a bright white color from heat treatment based passivation that also is a precipitation hardening process. It Does change some of the processing you do though; no need to pickle between steps, and this alloy is incredibly brittle and fragile while red hot (think like stale wet cake )! Interestingly, this sort of weak when red hot phenomenon is common for some bronze alloys too (and is part of why bronze stuff is more often cast or cold worked) Also has a way wider melting temp range which combined with being only 1/2 as thermally conductive as usual silver and copper alloys! This means the ways you sometimes work it heating wise feel more like what you’re working with a strange soft steel.