925 means the metal is 92,5% pure silver and 7,5% other metals. That is the sterling silver standard. It is a fineness mark describing composition — nothing more.
Which is worth understanding precisely, because a lot of buying decisions get made on the strength of those three digits, and the stamp answers fewer questions than most people assume.
Why aren't chains made from pure silver?
A chain is the hardest test you can set a soft metal. Dozens of small links carry the weight of the whole piece, and every one of them flexes and rubs against its neighbours all day. Pure silver — 999, fine silver — is soft enough that links made from it round off at the contact points, open under load and pick up marks faster than most people expect.
Fine-silver chains do exist and are sold. They tend to be light and narrow, and they suit someone who wants maximum purity and will handle the piece gently. What they are not is a chain you put on and forget about.
925 is the answer the trade settled on: a small proportion of harder metal, and the links hold their shape, take a mirror polish and survive being worn every day — while the piece stays overwhelmingly silver. That is the whole reason nearly every chain you will look at is sterling rather than fine silver, and why the 92,5/7,5 ratio has been the working standard in Europe for centuries.
The trade-off is that copper reacts — with sulphur compounds in the air, which is what produces tarnish, and with skin, which is why silver occasionally leaves a green mark. That is the price of a wearable chain, and it is fully reversible with a polishing cloth.
Where the stamp is on a chain
On a necklace or bracelet, look at the fastening end, and look at two places: the clasp body and the flat end pieces the clasp attaches to. Both get used. Some pieces carry the marks on the clasp itself, others on the end tabs, and some on a small tag hanging beside it. What they have in common is that a stamp needs a flat surface, and a chain has almost none.
On the chain photographed for this article, the two marks are split across the end pieces: 925 struck into one tab, Italy into the other. So if you find one mark and not the other, check the opposite side before concluding anything.
It is small. On a fine chain the digits may be well under a millimetre tall, and a phone camera's macro mode or a jeweller's loupe is often the only way to read it. If you cannot find a mark anywhere on either the clasp or the end pieces, that is worth noting — though a shallow strike on a small tab can also simply wear away with years of use.
Those two marks are all our chains carry. The first states the alloy, the second states where the chain was made. There is no maker's mark.
The other numbers you may see
| Mark | Silver content | Commonly used for |
|---|---|---|
| 999 | 99,9% — fine silver | Bullion, and jewellery where softness is acceptable. Fine-silver chains are sold, but they mark and deform more easily than sterling. |
| 950 | 95% | Some higher-purity jewellery; softer than sterling. |
| 925 | 92,5% — sterling | The standard for jewellery and chains. |
| 900 | 90% — coin silver | Older pieces and coinage. |
| 835 / 800 | 83,5% / 80% | Common in older continental European pieces. |
How these marks are regulated differs from one EU member state to the next: some require testing and marking by an official assay office, others rely on the maker's own registered mark.
Higher is not automatically better. A 999 chain would be softer and less durable than a 925 one, and would lose its shape. For anything worn daily, sterling is the right specification rather than a compromise.
What the 925 stamp does not tell you
This is the part worth knowing.
It does not tell you the chain is solid. A hollow chain made from thin sterling tubing is legitimately 925 — it just contains a fraction of the metal. This is the single biggest source of price confusion in silver, and the way to settle it is the gram weight: sterling has a fixed density, so a solid chain of a given size can only weigh one thing.
It does not tell you how well the chain is made. Link consistency, soldering quality, clasp engineering and finish vary enormously between chains carrying identical stamps.
It does not tell you where it was made. That is what a separate origin mark is for — the reason our chains carry Italy alongside the 925.
And a stamp can be false. Striking three digits into base metal is trivial. The stamp is a claim, not proof; the weight of the piece is much harder to fake, because it is dictated by physics rather than by whoever owned the punch.
Sterling, plated and filled
Three things get sold with the word silver attached, and they are not comparable:
- Sterling silver (925). The whole piece is the alloy, all the way through.
- Silver-plated. A microscopically thin layer of silver deposited over a base metal, usually brass. It wears through, and once it does the base metal is exposed. It should never be stamped 925.
- Silver-filled. A thicker bonded layer than plating, but still a coating over a different metal underneath.
Only the first has silver content that matters, and only the first can be repaired, resized or restored without exposing something else.
What we offer
Every Neviera chain and bracelet is solid 925 sterling silver throughout, made in Italy, stamped 925 and Italy. The 7,5% that is not silver is copper, zinc and indium, and the alloy contains no nickel. The gram weight of each size is published on its product page — which is the number the stamp cannot give you.
If you are choosing between styles rather than checking a stamp, our guide to the four silver chain styles compares Cuban, curb, Franco and rope side by side, with the weights of each.