Cookson's New Brilliante silver

Hi all,

Does anybody (particularly UK people) have any experience of the
“Brilliante” silver that Cookson (UK bullion dealer) have recently
launched?

The best I can do for a web page for their datasheet is from
Google’s cache, and is:

www.cooksongold.com/technical/datasheets/Brilliante.pdf

It looks as if they’ve removed the PDF from their webpage again.

From the datasheet, it appears to be 93.5% Silver, Tin, Zinc, Indium
and Copper, and with a melting point range of 890-950 C (unlike
Argentium, that’s higher than regular Sterling).

I heard about this having asked about tarnish and firestain
resistant alloys, such as Argentium. Apparently they had difficulties
licensing the patent, so have gone with this alloy instead, which
apparently has similar properties. Apparently the alloy can also be
age hardened – at 300 C for 4-6 hours, and has Britannia-like
properties with regard to deformation before requiring annealing (80%
reduction).

Casting looks a little strange (although I’m not yet equipped for
that anyway, beyond a little delft clay casting), as the datasheet
claims that the alloy should be liquid for 4-5 minutes before
casting, while “minimising zinc fuming”. I’m not really sure how I’d
be supposed to minimise that!

I’ll probably get a little of this to play with – but I’d love to
know if any more experienced users have any comments on the alloy!

Many thanks,
Ian

Hello Ian…

their claim is that it’s highly tarnish resistant, but doesn’t cast
well probably explains why they don’t sell it in grain form… I love
Cooksons pre-fab dark yellow 22kt gold, and I used to buy quite a
bit from the firm as i had a customer with an affinity for 9ct. gold
and britannia serving trays…go figure- so while ordering i’d usually
add a quantity of their 22kt DS sheet to my orders! However, I find
Hoover and Strong in the US equally accommodating if not more so
than Cookson, and H&S’s de-ox silver is superior to the small amount
of 1.2mm sheet I purchased from them to see how well it compared to
the de-ox sterling. I don’t really care for the argentium being sold
under a few different names by a few manufacturers…as I use.999 and
get along quite well with it for all silver needs… As far as Zn
fuming, i believe they are referring to quenching and
soldering…releasing zinc is fairly easy when one heats an alloy
containing it to the melting point…it’s, i believe the first
metal/element to burn off in an alloy.