Silver is 99.9% pure elemental silver.
Sterling Silver is 92.5% silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper.
The stamp .925 indicates that at item is 925 parts silver out of 1000 parts, the remaining 75 parts are usually copper but can be other metals.
Read more about silver here Not All Silver is Created Equal
What is Coin Silver?
In the US, the coin silver standard was established in the 1820s to be 90% silver and 10% copper and all dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars until the end of 1964 were made of those metals.
Coin Silver, when used in association with vintage Native American jewelry, is a term used to refer to the alloy that resulted when pre-1965 US silver coins were melted down to reuse in jewelry making. Coin silver made from US coins has less silver than sterling silver (90% compared to 92.5% in sterling silver) but that doesn’t necessarily make coin silver jewelry less desirable. In fact, because coin silver jewelry is usually older and hand hammered, it might be more valuable than if it were made of sterling silver.
Vintage Mexican coins often had a silver content above that of US coins, therefore was softer and easier to hand hammer and preferred by some old-time silversmiths. Some Mexican coin silver jewelry will test as high as sterling silver.
Early Native American craftsmen made jewelry directly from the coins, heating the coins in a fire pit or forge and hammering them into shape. Items like this often have some faint residual impressions from the coin design remaining.
They also made ingots by melting coins and pouring the liquid metal into molds to form ingots (blocks or bars). They then would hand forge, or hammer, an ingot into the shape of a bracelet or other item. It should be noted that some vintage ingots are “blends”, that is mostly Mexican coins with a few US coins thrown in OR mostly sterling silver with a few US coins thrown in or any variation thereof. That’s why the exact silver content will vary widely in the vintage jewelry.
This 1930’s bracelet was hand forged and tests at least as high as sterling silver, so is one of those “blends”.
Paula
Native American Jewelry Tips 
You have mentioned really useful information in your post. Thanks for sharing this. 🙂
I have a native American braclet almost like this where would i go to sell it? To get the best price?
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I have an old coin silver & green turquoise cuff bracelet. The stamp inside reads IH COIN SILVER. I think it’s a Fred Harvey era piece. If I send photos could you make that determination & maybe a possible value of it?
I love this website & continue to learn from it every time I need to know something.
Thank you.
Karen
Hi Karen, So glad you like my blog !
We don’t do authentication or appraisals via photos and email.
If you are selling it, you can read this http://www.horsekeeping.com/jewelry/pawn-buying.htm
Paula
Hi, I have a long leather belt with 17 hammered oval conchos on it each slide through a copper strap. The buckle matches them though and a large, thicker matching buckle. The conchos are about 1.75″ wide and 1.25″ tall, have tiny serrated edges that are more noticeable to the touch on the wide edges (as opposed to the more rounded, elongated ends) and that makes me wonder if they started out as coins. They have a bit of tarnish and can be easily polished. There are hand scratched initials WS inside the buckle. I was searching for a resource about how to tell if conchos were coins and found your blog Do you think the serrated edges indicate the conchos were originally coins?