Polish Sterling Silver Cufflinks with Onyx and Blue Paste

• Onyx - Onyx is a form of agate, used from antiquity and popular again in the 1920s and 30s. European onyx is generally green, but can be many other colours, and can contain bands of black and/or white.
  
  This multicoloured stone is widely used for table tops, lamp bases and in jewellery. Some types of onyx are also used for cameos of which the upper white layer is cut away to reveal the colour beneath.
• Paste / Rhinestone / Diamante - Paste (or rhinestone or diamante) is the name given to a coloured glass composition used for imitation gemstones, or to imitation gemstones made of glass.
  
  Although the technique of glassmaking had been known for thousands of years, but it wasn't until a lead glass with similar optical properties to diamonds were invented by a German jeweller working in Paris (either "Stras" or 'Strasser") in the early 18th century that "paste" gemstones became popular.
  
  There was no social stigma attached to wearing imitation stones, and they were worn in situations where highway robbery was a possibility. The 18th century settings were of very high quality, equivilent to real gemstone jewellery.
  
  In the nineteeth century the quality of paste jewellery declined and it has remained the poor cousin to genuine gemstones ever since.
• Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• cufflinks, designs and materials - silver items 496