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.
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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)
“Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse ... what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about. No force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house and clothing are mine for ever. Therefore not merely do effort and labour cease, but also hatred and bitterness. I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)