Nickel Silver - History

History

Nickel silver was first known and used in China. During the Qing Dynasty, it was "smuggled into various parts of the East Indies", despite a government ban on the export of nickel silver. It became known in the west from imported wares called bai-tong or paktong (白銅, literally "white copper"), for which the silvery metal colour was used to imitate sterling silver. According to Berthold Laufer, it was identical with khar sini, one of the seven metals recognized by Jābir ibn Hayyān.

In the 18th century, researchers found it was a copper-nickel-zinc alloy . In 1770 the Suhl (Germany) metalworks were able to produce a similar alloy. In 1823 a German competition was held to perfect the production process: the goal was to develop an alloy that possessed the closest visual similarity to silver. The brothers Henniger in Berlin and Ernst August Geitner in Schneeberg independently achieved this goal. The manufacturer Berndorf named the trademark brand Alpacca, which became widely known in northern Europe for nickel silver. About the same time in 1832, a form of German silver was also developed in Birmingham, England.

After 1840, the development of electroplating caused nickel silver to become widely used. It formed an ideal, strong and bright substrate for the plating process. It was also used unplated in applications such as cheaper grades of cutlery.