Why Does Silver Jewelry Last for Generations?

The first thing my mociute did, every time I climbed the stairs to her flat in Kaunas, was reach for the tin on the windowsill. It was an old tea tin with the paint gone soft at the corners, and inside it lived her silver jewelry, wrapped in a linen handkerchief that had yellowed along the folds. She would tip it out onto the table where the Baltic light comes in thin, even in June, and the pieces would catch that light as if they had been waiting all week for it. That tin is where I learned why good silver jewelry lasts for generations, and why the cheap kind rarely survives a single winter.

The tin on the windowsill

There was never very much in it. A pair of studs she had worn to her own wedding. Two thin hoops. A pendant on a fine chain, the stone a deep forest green. A band she had stopped being able to wear on the intended finger and moved, without ceremony, to another. "People think you need a lot," she told me once, turning a hoop so it threw a small coin of light onto the ceiling. "You need a few honest things." She used that word for silver more than any other. Honest. Either a piece was what it claimed to be, or it was pretending, and she could tell the difference with her thumb before she could with her eyes.

Why she only ever bought 925

"Look for the number," she said, the first time she let me hold the pendant. On the back, almost too small to read, were three figures pressed into the metal: 925. "That is how much of it is truly silver. Ninety two and a half parts in a hundred." Pure silver, she explained, is too soft to live an ordinary life. It bends, it scratches, it loses its line. So it is strengthened with a little of something harder, and the result is sterling silver, sturdy enough to be worn every day for fifty years and still close a clasp. The pieces without that number, the ones that are only the colour of silver, are the ones that turn your skin dark and your stomach with it. "925," she repeated, as if it were a small prayer. "Anything else, you leave on the shelf."

The mark you do not see at a glance

Beside the number, on the better pieces, there was a second mark, smaller still, the sign of the maker willing to stand behind the work. She told me this was the part most people never look for. A real silver house registers its mark so that a piece can always be traced to a name, to someone accountable for it. Loretana, the studio only a few streets from where she lived, is registered with Lietuvos prabavimo rumai, the Lithuanian assay office, and every piece carries the 925 hallmark alongside that registered responsibility mark. "The number tells you what it is," she said, holding the pendant to the window. "The mark tells you who will answer for it." She trusted the second one almost more than the first.

Rhodium, and the shine that survives winters

Her hoops had outlived two coats, three apartments, and one poor marriage, and they still shone like the day she bought them. The secret, she said, was a coating so fine you would never know it was there. Rhodium, one of the rarest metals on earth, dearer by weight than gold, laid over the silver in a layer thinner than a breath. It does three quiet things. It keeps the silver from darkening in the damp Baltic air. It is harder than silver, so it shrugs off the small scratches of a life. And it sits kindly against skin that reacts to everything else. The rhodium plated pieces in her tin were the ones that looked, decades on, as though no time had touched them at all.

What the colored stones meant to her

The green pendant was her favourite, and not only for the colour. In her telling, every stone carried a word. Green was for plenty, for a full table and a full house. Red was for love, the loud kind and the long kind both. Blue was for protection, the stone you pressed into a hand before a journey. White was for clarity, for a clean beginning. She had given my mother a blue one the week she left for university, and my mother wears it still. "You do not buy the stone," mociute said. "You buy the thing you are trying to say." It is the most Baltic idea I know, that a small cool stone can hold a sentence you cannot manage out loud.

How she kept silver alive

She was not precious about it, which is exactly why it lasted. Silver, she believed, likes to be worn. The oils of the skin keep it bright, so the pieces that sat in the tin too long were the ones that dulled, never the ones she used. Her rules were few. Take it off before the bath and before bed. Keep it dry, in soft cloth, away from the steam of the kitchen. Wipe it now and then with something gentle. Put your perfume on first and let it settle before the silver goes on. That was the whole of her method, and it kept a pair of wedding studs wedding bright for half a century.

Why she gave silver, and never anything less

When there was an occasion, a christening, a leaving, a wedding among her own children, she gave silver, and only the real kind. A cheap chain, she said, was a small insult dressed as a present, because it would green a wrist by autumn and be quietly thrown away. A piece of true 925 sterling silver was a different message altogether. It could be worn at the table that same evening and again at a funeral forty years on. She kept a short list in her head of the people she still meant to give to, and she was never in a hurry over it, because honest silver jewelry waits as patiently as it lasts.

Silver or gold, and why it never troubled her

Late in her life the same designs began to appear in gold as well, and she was not tempted, though not for the reason you might guess. She had no quarrel with gold. What she would not abide was fakery, the gold colour sprayed onto cheap metal that wears off in a season. The honest gold version, she understood, was the same 925 sterling silver underneath, plated in real 14K or 18K gold, the same good bones in a warmer coat. "If it is real on the inside," she said, "wear whichever pleases you." She simply happened to be a silver woman, born in a silver country, under a silver sort of sky.

Passing it on

The tin is mine now. The wedding studs, the two thin hoops, the green pendant, the band that travelled from finger to finger. I have added a few honest things of my own, chosen the way she taught me, by the number first and the mark second. When people ask why I bother with real silver jewelry when so much costs less and shines for a while, I think of the windowsill, and the thin northern light, and a woman who could read a piece with her thumb. Good silver is not an expense. It is a letter you write to whoever opens the tin after you. You might begin one in the silver earrings collection or the silver necklaces collection, and if you mean to say something with a stone, the silver rings collection is a fine place to start.

Frequently asked questions

What makes silver jewelry last for generations?

Real 925 sterling silver, a protective rhodium plating, and simple care. The 925 mark means the metal is durable enough for daily wear, rhodium slows tarnish and resists scratches, and keeping a piece dry and worn often keeps it bright for decades.

How can I tell if silver jewelry is real?

Look for the 925 stamp, and on a quality piece a maker's responsibility mark beside it. Loretana pieces carry the 925 international hallmark alongside our registered responsibility mark, registered with Lietuvos prabavimo rumai. A piece with no mark at all may only be a silver colored alloy.

Does silver jewelry suit sensitive skin?

Yes. All Loretana silver jewelry is nickel free and rhodium plated, which makes it friendly to sensitive and allergy prone skin.

What do the colored stones mean?

In the Loretana range each colour carries a meaning: green for wealth, red for love, blue for protection, white for clarity. It is a simple way to make a gift say something.

Is the gold version real gold?

The gold version is the same 925 sterling silver, plated in real 14K or 18K gold. It is genuine gold plating, not a gold colored imitation.

MB Loretana is officially registered with Lietuvos prabavimo rumai (order 4819767, dated 2026-03-04) and identified by a registered responsibility mark. Every piece carries the 925 international hallmark alongside our responsibility mark, and ships from Kaunas within 1 business day, with 1 to 3 business days delivery across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.