Here is one of the gifts I gave my wife on Valentine’s Day 2017…
A sterling silver radial-forged bangle to go with the copper bangle I had made for her in the past (see the Copper Radial Forged Bangle post from back in May 2016 for pictures and information on that).
This one is slightly different though, as I filed, sanded and polished the side surfaces giving them a mirror finish, but left the hammer marks from the forging on the top surfaces as they were (I had left the hammer marks from forging on both the side and top surfaces of the copper bangle).
Here’s another shot of the sterling silver radial-forged bangle with a slightly different view…
Even though the 6 ga. copper wire costs about 85 cents at the hardware store, and 6 ga. sterling silver wire ten times that much, the same work and amount of effort went into forging both bangles.
Yet, oddly enough, you would be surprised at the number of people that won’t flinch at the $200 price tag in a retailer’s catalog for the silver bangle, but would try to argue you down to $20 for the copper version just because it is copper.
Somehow they reason that if the metal is cheap, the price must be, too, no matter how much work went into creating it. :-/