What? Packaging causes jewelry to tarnish?
What, your packaging is causing your jewelry to tarnish?
Obviously, no manufacturer would want to purposely degrade their products’ performance or appearance. However, this may be exactly what happens when proper attention and understanding is not applied to selecting packaging materials for storing and shipping jewelry. This negative impact can affect many metals used in the creation of jewelry including silver and gold plated items. Many adhesives used in the box as well as the foam inserts can contain chlorides, nitrous gases and sulfur, which when tested have shown to cause substantial tarnish to all metals - especially silver jewelry. This is also true for a variety of other packaging materials including but not limited to ring, pendant and bracelet boxes, earring display cards, necklace cards, leatherette, fabric and wood.
An increase in temperature during storage, shipping, and display, coupled with the close proximity of these materials to the jewelry can accelerate the tarnishing effects of these gases. Due to varying climates across the globe the rate at which this additional factor impacts tarnishing will differ. Negatively impacting the appearance of stored and shipped jewelry can result in additional costs due to potential returns from either the customer, distributor, retailer, or the manufacturer, if jewelry products arrive looking tarnished or dull.
Though packaging often remains a secondary consideration for jewelry manufacturers, going beyond simple aesthetics can provide short term benefits for protection of items that are tarnish sensitive. The addition of active anti-corrosion protection added to the packaging design can boost packaging from being neutral to the items inside, to enhancing the products. Results show us that choosing the correct materials for constructing the packaging for shipping, storing and display is important for how your jewelry products are protected.
Parts of the above are excerpts from our presentation at the 2022 Santa Fe symposium: Authors: Keith Donaldson/Marc Rothenberg
