Maillechort
Alloys · Common · Modern
German silver, nickel silver, alpaca: every name it goes by promises silver, and there is not a gram of it inside. Copper, zinc and nickel make that colour on their own. It is also what most silver-plated cutlery is plated onto, which is why a worn spoon shows a faint yellow patch where the silver has gone through.
Identity
- Source
- Modern alloy: copper, zinc, nickel
- Composition
- Copper ~60%, Nickel ~20%, Zinc ~20%
- Over time
- Named after the Lyon metalworkers Maillot and Chorier, who devised it between 1819 and 1823. The Chinese paktong, white copper, came first, and German makers had copied it as German silver.
- Also known as
- German silver, Nickel silver, Alpaca
- Ores, before industry and since
- Azurite (Copper), Chalcocite (Copper), Chalcopyrite (Copper), Copper (Copper), Malachite (Copper), Tetrahedrite (Copper), Hemimorphite (Zinc), Smithsonite (Zinc), Sphalerite (Zinc)
- Ores of the industrial age
- Bornite (Copper), Chrysocolla (Copper), Covellite (Copper), Cuprite (Copper), Enargite (Copper), Garnierite (Nickel), Limonite (Nickel), Nickeline (Nickel), Pentlandite (Nickel), Skutterudite (Nickel)
Physical Properties
- Appearance
- Bright silver-white, almost indistinguishable from sterling silver to the untrained eye
- Luster
- Metallic
- Density
- 8.7 g/cm³
- Melting point
- 1020 °C
- Boiling point
- 1900 °C
- Lighter
- Veinstone Metal
- Denser
- Orium
- Magnetism
- Non-magnetic
- Electrical conductivity
- Medium
Mechanical Properties
- Mohs hardness
- 3.5
- Tensile strength
- 400 MPa
- Softer
- Shakudo
- Harder
- Hepatizon
- Workability
- Easy
- Brittleness
- Tough
- Malleability
- High
- Ductility
- High
Chemical Properties
- Corrosion resistance
- High
- Reactivity
- Low
Lore & Narrative
Named after its French inventors Maillot and Chorier in the 1820s, maillechort sparked a legal battle over its use in cutlery, with silverware manufacturers claiming it was fraudulent. French courts ruled that 'German silver' products only needed to be labelled correctly, not banned. The ruling established the legal framework for substitute materials that persists today.
- Notable uses
- Cutlery, musical instrument keys, decorative hardware, jewellery
- Forge uses
- Cutlery, Musical instruments, Decorative hardware
- Worldbuilding traits
- Deceptive-appearance, affordable, silver-mimic, Decorative
Sources
- Maillechort, Wikipédia
- Nickel silver, Wikipedia
Browse the Metal Encyclopedia — MGS Toolbox