Silver
Silver was one of the first metals humans worked with to manufacture goods such as utensils, weapons and jewelry. Very accessible and easy to work with, silver was often reused by melting it down and turning it into other pieces. The silver tradition was carried over from Europe to the Americas and what resulted was the merging of the old European craft with native traditions in both North and South America. As a result of this, mines in Mexico and Peru today are still the highest producers of silver in the world. People in these regions are also the most prolific in producing silver jewelry.
Silver is highly reflective, outshining even platinum, and for this reason its atomic symbol is Ag, meaning "white and shining" in Latin. Despite its positive qualities, silver has lost much of its value as a precious metal in recent years and is consequently cheaper than gold and platinum. For this reason, jewelers often experiment with silver first before using gold for the final design in their jewelry. However, pure silver is much too soft to be used practically for jewelry or otherwise. Therefore, it is alloyed (mixed) with other metals like copper. Silver is usually 92.5% pure (with the other 7.5% being metal alloy) and is often referred to as sterling silver.