Scottish Chalcedony Scottish Gold and Sterling Silver Pendant

Scottish Chalcedony

Our Chalcedony is sourced from Ardownie in Dundee. A gem traditionally esteemed by Scottish jewellers , this delicately clouded variety of Agate formed throughout the country's ancient lava flows. Popular in Victorian jewellery, particularly in Scotland, where they were cut, faceted and set into 'pebble jewellery', which are fast becoming collector's items.

Scottish Gold

We work with a very small team of dedicated Gold Prospectors here in Scotland, in keeping with our low impact and ethical practices ethos. It's important to us that none of the people we work with source their gold using environmentally destructive methods, such as commercial gold mining.

Our Scottish Gold has been laboratory tested to verify a purity of approximately 18 carats. We hallmark at 14ct as it is the lowest we can legitimately stamp our gold - in reality, a single tiny Scottish Gold flake can vary from 14ct up to 22ct over its structure.

We prefer to leave our gold as is - we never add non-Scottish Gold to bring up the 'carat count', and our Scottish Gold is also completely natural - no toxic chemicals have been added to bring the gold to a specific purity.

Sterling Silver 925%

Why do silversmiths use 925%? Measured in parts per thousand, pure silver (999%) is too soft so silversmiths mix it with other metals to make it it harder. The purer the metal, the higher the polish, but it is a lot softer (thus less durable). The harder the metal is, the more hard wearing the jewellery is, but it will also tarnish easier as it has less silver content. Therefore, the silver industry set a standard percentage content for fine silver (925); what we know as "sterling silver". At Two Skies our silversmiths use 925 (sterling) silver for ring shafts and moving parts, and a very high 950% on our stones settings, which enables us to get a strong jewellery item with a beautiful and secure stone setting, without any gluing. Each piece of our jewellery is hand stamped with our Two Skies Hallmark alongside the recognised industry 925 Hallmark.