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White bronze is a copper, tin, and zinc alloy used in jewelry as a replacement for nickel and as an undercoat in silver jewelry. It is non-magnetic, resistant to corrosion, and does not tarnish. It was also used for gravestones from 1870 to 1910.
White bronze is a metal that serves two common purposes. It’s not actually bronze, but an alloy of varying amounts of copper, tin, and zinc. It is commonly used in jewelry as a replacement for nickel and was used many years ago as a headstone material. While no longer used for the second purpose, it was suitable for that application at the time.
For jewellery, white bronze is an ideal substitute for nickel and silver due to its appearance and chemical properties. It is non-magnetic, very smooth and virtually non-porous. It is also highly resistant to corrosion and breakage. It also offers an advantage that silver does not offer, namely that it does not tarnish.
However, there are only a few situations where white bronze can replace silver. It is not used to replace silver in jewelry made with silver only. Instead, it is used as a buffer between a base metal and the gold plating in gold plated jewelry. Electroplating is used to apply metal in these situations. It can also be used as an undercoat in silver jewellery.
While inexpensive, white bronze has a very attractive appearance, which means it can be used as a top coat in some jewelry. When used as an internal barrier layer, it is usually about 0.000039 inches to 0.0001 inches (1 to 3 microns) thick. This is an extremely thin layer, approximately 1/100th the thickness of a human hair. The need to replace nickel with white bronze, even in light of the minimal amount of material used, stems from concerns about the effect of nickel on the environment.
From 1870 to 1910, this metal was used as a raw material for gravestones by some manufacturers. This type was primarily zinc, rather than the primarily tin alloy used in jewelry. It was called White Bronze as a marketing ploy to make it more attractive. Grave markers made from this material usually took on a light gray or pale blue appearance and held up to the elements better than stone markers because they were less porous. These tombstones were actually hollow and consisted of vertical panels held together by screws at the corners. It is said that outlaws sometimes took advantage of this fact and hid stolen goods inside tall, empty monuments.
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