A visit to Silver City

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Winding cobble roads, streets the size of sidewalks, constant honks of passing cars, beautiful cathedrals, shops on every corner, people of every colour, this is Silver City.

Taxco is a small city and municipality located in the Mexican state of Guerrero. It is the largest producer of silver in the world. There is a silver mine there where the silver is taken from the rocks, mixed, melted, shaped and sold.

Many people throughout Mexico and across the globe base their livelihood off the sales of silver while the rest of the world may be more concerned with where to get it. From a consumption point of view, Taxsco is a consumer’s delight. Silver on every corner, silver bracelets, silver necklaces, silver rings, silver rattles, silver cups, silver plates, silver toothpicks even silver lined and plated horse saddles.

Loyalist students and Quest participants planned a visit to this shiny city and paid a visit to the silver plantation where they learned about the creation process and how to tell real from fake.
“If it is shinny, supper shiny, it is probably fake,” they said. “Real silver is shiny but not compared to the fake and all real silver will be stamped somewhere with the percentage of silver, 9.75 means it is all real silver. The lower the number the higher the percentage of bronze mixed with the silver.”

Silver is flexible and not very sturdy and so it is mixed with copper to make it more durable. Many street vendors and stores will claim their silver to be real and sell it at a high prize, especially to tourists and new comers who are not familiar. In certain circumstances, the place where you purchase your silver can be extremely important because it is common for people to use stamps on their jewellery to claim it is still silver but it still may not be, or may only be silver plated.

“But not in Taxsco, here it is the real thing,” they said.