Earring findings

Does anybody have a great source for solid silver earring fixings?
Thank you!

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Fire mountain gems

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My first go-to for quality is Rio Grande though I found it cheaper at Amazon…

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If you haven’t already considered it, you may want to look into titanium fixings, especially if they are posts. I know that my customers appreciate the hypoallergenic qualities!

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Ooo that sounds good. How much do they usually run / is there a good source you use for titanium?

It seems silver is about 8-12 dollars per pair for loops on these sites, which seems like the entire value of what I am making :slight_smile: @rbtdanforth @j_trexler thank you for the resources, they look great.

My wife can’t wear anything with my findings from ali express.

I recall someone made an earring finding maker, but I don’t recall who did or what terms to search to find it.

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I recall that most commercial silver jewelry (circa 2010) was rhodium plated so it wouldn’t tarnish. However, you can’t just plate rhodium over sterling, there has to be a layer of nickel over it. So, your commercial sterling silver jewelry has a layer of nickel and rhodium over the precious metal. No wonder people think they are allergic to silver–most are allergic to the poorly plated nickel under the thin rhodium layer.

Given the current prices for metals, especially rhodium ($21,000+ per troy ounce), I would not be surprised if the quality is lower now than in 2010.

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Thank you for the info, I was hoping to avoid the nickel. Maybe I can’t go silver.

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I always buy stainless steel posts and hooks for my earrings. I get them off Amazon. I think last time I got a pack that has 3 different sizes of posts, 5mm, 6mm and 8mm.

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I found these on Amazon;

These are gold colored ones, but they also come in colors.

Hypoallergenic
(Anodized niobium)
Niobium is an inert metal. Resistant to corrosion. Nickel Free, lead free, cadmium free.
Anodized niobium makes color permanent and non-reactive. It isn’t a paint or tint. Niobium is also a durable and corrosion resistant. A good alternative when other metals cause allergic reactions. While nothing can be guaranteed allergy free, most people tolerate these wires very well.

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I love silver and it pains me that it has such a bad reputation due to plating. I also found, during my jewelry-making days, that sometimes a finished piece marked “925” was really only sterling silver plated onto base metal. Serious bummer.

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I don’t have source, I just bought them off Etsy a few years ago :sweat_smile: Like Xabbess mentioned, niobium is also great!

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I’ve been buying titanium or sterling silver ones from etsy.
Those are the only ones I can wear, so I feel obligated to use those for anyone else, too. lol (I mean, I can’t afford real high quality gold lol)

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Metal prices are just nuts and unrelated sometimes to each other or reality. Gold was/is expensive because it was so easy to work to make good-looking stuff, so most of the most precious and beautiful stuff is melted down into ugly bricks and hidden away. Platinum was once cheaper than silver, and the change in silver being no longer used in photography put a relative hit there. Then imagine that you could get a pound of silver for a British Pound or even the official $35 an oz gold.

Silver only gets tarnished from the corrosion of the copper in it. Fine silver does not tarnish but is soft. I am surprised that they have not made another metal replacement that would not tarnish. Of course, fine silver plating on sterling silver would solve the nickel plating issue.

Selling earrings with low-cost findings with a premium for silver findings allows those fortunate enough to be able to wear non-silver to not have to pay the silver premium for your work.

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Yeah, I was thinking of doing that at some point. Offering the choice and charging maybe an extra 50 cents or $1 for titanium or sterling silver.

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I would just charge the real difference in price to you. Particularly as the earrings themselves are not silver.

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The price compared to how much you can get the cheap ones is probably not that far off from what I said. LOL

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If you have a type of wire you’d like to use, there are a couple ear wire jigs in the catalog so you can make your own:

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