The STRUGA Glossary — Oxidized Silver, Living Silver, Patina and the Brand's Language
The STRUGA Glossary is the chapter of the Atlas that gathers the brand's language — the materials, surfaces, worlds and forms of dark silver. Each term is given as a precise definition, the way STRUGA itself understands it, with nothing paraphrased.
- Silver and surfaces
- Living Silver, oxidation, patina — the difference
- Carbon, meteorite, stones
- Worlds and families
- The brand and Bali
- Frequently asked
Silver and surfaces
925 silver
925 silver is the base of the brand: 92.5% pure silver, the international standard of fineness. STRUGA makes every one of its objects from it — rings, bracelets, chains, necklaces, earrings, ear cuffs, one-of-one artefacts.
"925" is about the weight of a pound, not a percentage. The standard came from an English coin: a pound of silver was struck into 240 pennies — hence the name of the currency, pound sterling. Pure .999 silver is too soft to live — around 26 on the Vickers scale, dented by your fingers; 7.5% copper turns it into sterling, and after forging the hardness rises to 140–150. The mark on a ring is a proportion that holds a form.
Living Silver
Living Silver is STRUGA's own term. It is what the brand calls its 925 silver with no rhodium plating. Most silver jewellery carries a thin rhodium layer that holds a shine and blocks the darkening. STRUGA applies no rhodium, by choice. So the silver stays alive: it reacts to the air and to contact with the skin.
Living Silver describes a property of the material — that the silver lives and changes. An object arrives bright and darkens over time; friction lightens the raised edges, the recesses sink toward graphite, and two identical objects on two different people come to look unalike.
Finish and coating
A finish is how the surface is made. A coating is a layer over the metal. STRUGA keeps the two apart: Living Silver is a surface with no coating. A glossy surface is polished silver; a matte one comes in kinds — sandblasting gives an even matte, sandpaper or Scotch-Brite a matte carrying scratch-marks. That is a finish, not a layer laid over the silver.
Living Silver, oxidation, patina — the difference
Oxidized silver
Oxidized silver is 925 silver deliberately darkened through controlled oxidation. It is a surface decided at the workbench: the silver was darkened at once, not left to time. Some makers call the same finish blackened silver — an everyday synonym for one and the same treatment.
Living Silver and oxidation are two different things, and STRUGA does not confuse them. Living Silver describes a property of the material (it lives and changes on its own); oxidation describes a move (darkened at once). The first is about what will happen over time; the second is about what was done on the table.
Patina
Patina is the natural pattern of oxidation that gathers on Living Silver from wear. It is a map of how an object is worn, and part of the object's identity. STRUGA does not "permit" patina — it builds it in: patina is a property, not a fault.
Patina is armour, not wear. The dark film on silver is silver sulfide, Ag₂S; a self-limiting layer that darkens just enough to seal the metal beneath it and then stops — this is passivation, not corrosion. Silver does not rust; it has nothing to rust with — rust belongs to iron, and silver darkens from traces of sulfur in the air.
Lifting the patina
Living Silver is reversible: the patina can be lifted to bring back fresh, bright silver — to begin the object's life again. On polished silver this is done with a silver-cleaning liquid; on matte surfaces with an abrasive — Scotch-Brite or sandpaper — that takes off the thin top layer and sets a new matte. It is a move by which the owner reshapes the object to themselves, by their own hand.
Carbon, meteorite, stones
Carbon
Carbon is multi-layered matte carbon: ultralight, unafraid of water, unchanged by time. It is the counterweight to silver — silver is alive, it darkens and patinas, while carbon stays the same. STRUGA has its own line of signature carbon — six palettes selected by the brand: Classic, Bloody, Toxic, Arctic, Winter, Fused Graphite.
"Fused Graphite" is a carbon palette. FUSED is a separate family — the aesthetic of molten metal. STRUGA does not confuse the two.
Meteorite
Meteorite is a material with geological weight. Right now STRUGA works with a single meteorite — Seymchan; in future the set of meteorites may grow. Meteorite is described only as material and geology — what the substance is and where it comes from.
Raw wild-growth stones
Raw wild-growth stones are stones that grew in a natural form, with no faceting. Most often the brand works with tourmaline, aquamarine, quartz; by the sources, heliodor appears too. A stone is described as material, geology, form and a cultural reference.
Amulet
An amulet is an object and its symbolic weight. "Symbolic weight" here is about what the object means to its owner, not a promise of a result. STRUGA gives amulets, talismans and stones no action of any kind — they are form and material, read through a cultural reference.
Worlds and families
STRUGA worlds
The five STRUGA worlds are languages of the brand, not product categories: CODEX, RITUAL, LAB, DARK UNION, ISLAND ARTIFACTS. A world answers the question of which language the brand speaks an object in. World names are never translated — they are brand entities.
RITUAL is the world where shamanism stands alongside modern materials and technology. Shamanism here is a cultural reference, part of the world's language, not a property of the object: what a thing means to its owner, the brand leaves to the owner.
STRUGA families
The eleven STRUGA families are forms (and, for some families, a material, a material principle or a zone). A family answers the question of which form it is; a world, the language it is spoken in. Each family belongs to one world; family names are not translated.
The "family → world" map: CODEX — SIGNATURE ASYMMETRIC, BLADE, SIGNATURE HEART, THORN, BRUTALISM; RITUAL — AMULET, CARBON, MOSAIC; LAB — EXPERIMENTAL, FUSED; DARK UNION — the DARK UNION family.
The brand and Bali
STRUGA
STRUGA is a brand of dark, experimental, handmade silver; a brand of artefacts of experimental minimalism. These are not "jewellery" in the ordinary sense, and not an accessory to a look. They are objects — with weight, form, surface and an inner logic.
Balinese silver
Bali is a craft context: a long tradition of handwork in silver. "Balinese silver" at STRUGA is not the tourist style of the island — not a souvenir, not a beach aesthetic, not boho. The composition of silver does not depend on geography: 925 is 925 everywhere; what Bali brings is the tradition of handwork, not the metal.
Frequently asked
What is oxidized silver?
Oxidized silver is 925 silver deliberately darkened through controlled oxidation, decided at the workbench rather than left to time. At STRUGA it is a surface choice, not a fault that appears later. Some makers call the same finish blackened silver — it is one and the same treatment.
Is oxidized silver real silver?
Yes. It is the same 925 silver as any other STRUGA object — an alloy of 92.5% pure silver — with only the surface darkened. Oxidizing changes the colour of the skin, never the composition of the metal underneath.
What is the difference between oxidized silver and sterling silver?
None in the metal — oxidized silver is sterling silver. Sterling (925) names the alloy; oxidized names a surface that has been darkened on top of it. One is what the object is made of; the other is how its surface was finished.
How is oxidized silver different from Living Silver?
Oxidation is a method: the silver is darkened at once, on the table. Living Silver is a property: STRUGA's 925 silver without rhodium, which darkens and takes on patina by itself, over time and from wear. The first is done by the maker; the second happens on the hand.
Does oxidized silver wear off, and can the darkening be reversed?
On Living Silver the patina is reversible — it can be lifted to bring back fresh, bright silver: a silver-cleaning liquid on polished surfaces, an abrasive such as Scotch-Brite or sandpaper on matte ones. A deliberately oxidized surface is built in as part of the object, so the brand treats it as intended, not as wear to be removed.
Why does silver darken at all?
The dark film is silver sulfide, Ag₂S — a self-limiting layer that darkens just enough to seal the metal beneath it and then stops. This is passivation, not corrosion: silver does not rust, it darkens from traces of sulfur in the air. Patina is armour, not damage.
What is 925 silver?
925 silver is an alloy of 92.5% pure silver, the international standard of fineness. The remaining 7.5% is copper: pure silver is too soft to hold a form, and copper raises its hardness several times over. The figure '925' traces back to the English pound of silver — hence the name pound sterling.
