Nickel silver, also known as German silver, Argentan, new silver, nickel brass, albata, alpacca, or electrum, is a copper alloy with nickel and often zinc. The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. Nickel silver is named for its silvery appearance, but it contains no elemental silver unless plated. The name "German silver" refers to its development by 19th-century German metalworkers in imitation of the Chinese alloy known as paktong (Cupronickel) All modern, commercially important nickel silvers (such as those standardized under ASTM B122) contain significant amounts of zinc, and are sometimes considered a subset of brass.
Read more about Nickel Silver: Uses, Toxicity, History, Fraudulent Uses
Famous quotes containing the words nickel and/or silver:
“Castro couldn’t even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or
the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the
cistern.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit
shall return unto God who gave it.
Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.”
—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes (l. XII, 6–7)