Hill Tribe Handmade Silver Jewelry
A rich part of the hill tribe's cultural tradition is the making and wearing of silver jewelry. Once, an artistic skill honed in the tiny tribal villages in the mountains of northern Thailand, some items can still be found produced in the workshops and villages around Chiangmai. Intricate patterns of hill tribe-inspired designs; bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings are hammered out by Thai silversmiths.
As with all societies today, the hill tribe society is evolving. Their crafts and markets have evolved as well. Many hill tribe folk have gone on to study modern silver smithing methods and designs, and returned to the villages to practice their new-found methods alongside the traditional silversmiths there. Some still practice and preserve the traditional methods. This creates a wonderful variety of styles and finishes.
A buyer of handmade silver jewelry in northern Thailand can purchase the less refined silver-work of the hill tribes. They could just as well buy modern implementations of the traditional designs handmade from sterling silver, made by hill tribe crafts-folk, in the same village.
Many hill tribe silversmiths create detailed handmade silver jewelry from fine (99.9%) silver ingots. When you deal with these folk they will guarantee the purity of silver to be 95 - 98%. They painstakingly hammer, solder, and engrave each piece to completion. This silver is very soft, and easily worked; the pieces appearing much as they did adorning the hill women of centuries ago.
Commonly stated knowledge states that the higher the purity of the silver the more resistant to tarnish. Just as adding trace elements to steel can create a more rust resistant steel, adding trace elements to silver can enhance resistance to tarnish. We'll get into that in another article. We'll also try and publish an assay report from the different silver items we offer and, maybe, a few we declined.
We have noticed that the hill tribe silver made of higher purity silver is usually duller when we first purchase it. The silver is softer and therefore easier to bring to a high polish but this polish does not seem to last as long as it is easily abraded.
Silver soldering uses a low melting point solder of between 56 - 70% silver. The base (parent) metal is never melted. In silver welding the base and filler metals are of the same melting point and composition. The parent metal is melted to fuse the fabrication into one piece. Filler metal may, or may not, be added.
By using pure silver and silver soldering, it is much easier to form the metal in to intricate shapes and patterns. Most of the finest small repousse´ pieces are in pure silver. While the older methods render a more rustic, less precise appearance this seems to add to the allure of these items.
Because each jewelry component is handcrafted individually, no two pieces will ever be the same. Each carries an imprint of it's own moment in time; marked as the artisan created it. Styles and methods vary from village to village, by examining the soldered or welded joints you begin to develop an idea from which village pieces come from.
"Hill Tribe" handmade silver jewelry has become big business in the north of Thailand. It pays to know your supplier and have the metal assayed regularly. In order to ensure our customers receive the quality goods they purchased we only deal with reputable silversmiths at their location and routinely have the metal tested. We have been lucky in finding honest and talented crafts-folk.
Evolution of the Craft
As with all societies today, the hill tribe society is evolving. Their crafts and markets have evolved as well. Many hill tribe folk have gone on to study modern silver smithing methods and designs, and returned to the villages to practice their new-found methods alongside the traditional silversmiths there. Some still practice and preserve the traditional methods. This creates a wonderful variety of styles and finishes.
A buyer of handmade silver jewelry in northern Thailand can purchase the less refined silver-work of the hill tribes. They could just as well buy modern implementations of the traditional designs handmade from sterling silver, made by hill tribe crafts-folk, in the same village.
The Silver
Many hill tribe silversmiths create detailed handmade silver jewelry from fine (99.9%) silver ingots. When you deal with these folk they will guarantee the purity of silver to be 95 - 98%. They painstakingly hammer, solder, and engrave each piece to completion. This silver is very soft, and easily worked; the pieces appearing much as they did adorning the hill women of centuries ago.
Commonly stated knowledge states that the higher the purity of the silver the more resistant to tarnish. Just as adding trace elements to steel can create a more rust resistant steel, adding trace elements to silver can enhance resistance to tarnish. We'll get into that in another article. We'll also try and publish an assay report from the different silver items we offer and, maybe, a few we declined.
We have noticed that the hill tribe silver made of higher purity silver is usually duller when we first purchase it. The silver is softer and therefore easier to bring to a high polish but this polish does not seem to last as long as it is easily abraded.
Methods
Silver soldering uses a low melting point solder of between 56 - 70% silver. The base (parent) metal is never melted. In silver welding the base and filler metals are of the same melting point and composition. The parent metal is melted to fuse the fabrication into one piece. Filler metal may, or may not, be added.
By using pure silver and silver soldering, it is much easier to form the metal in to intricate shapes and patterns. Most of the finest small repousse´ pieces are in pure silver. While the older methods render a more rustic, less precise appearance this seems to add to the allure of these items.
Because each jewelry component is handcrafted individually, no two pieces will ever be the same. Each carries an imprint of it's own moment in time; marked as the artisan created it. Styles and methods vary from village to village, by examining the soldered or welded joints you begin to develop an idea from which village pieces come from.
"Hill Tribe" handmade silver jewelry has become big business in the north of Thailand. It pays to know your supplier and have the metal assayed regularly. In order to ensure our customers receive the quality goods they purchased we only deal with reputable silversmiths at their location and routinely have the metal tested. We have been lucky in finding honest and talented crafts-folk.
