Thai Karen Hill Tribe silver: From the hands of the Hills

Karen (or Karean) is the largest Hill Tribe people group in Thailand. They are living in mountain area in Northern of Thailand. Karen people are also dividing in many small groups living scattering around this area. The most famous group is “Long Neck Karen” but the group which make these product called “Paka-Kayor” living in Lumphoon province southern province of Chiang Mai ( about 600km from Capital City-Bangkok). They use silver to decorate their clothes and themselves for longtime. Even Asian culture price gold more than silver, but Karen Hill Tribe people like to ware silver and use them to decorate their clothes. They can afford gold but they think silver is suite for them than gold. With craftsmanship and culture pass through generations, Hill Tribe silver products have unique design and store within.

Without any machine and electrical use in working process, Karen silversmith use only hand tools for their silver work process. Craftsmanship technique pass through their generations make Hill Tribe silver product have unique design pattern on their product. Even now they use some machine in their process. But the main part still using only hammer and hand tools which keep their product still have Silversmith spirit.

Working best with Hammer and other Hand tools, raw silver material need to soft enough to bend and change shape. So they can’t add more material in raw silver (Pure silver is soft and easy to bend and lose their shape). They add only small amount of Copper (about 2%) mix with pure silver (99.98% silver). Adding some Copper to strengthen silver product to keep their silver product shape but can’t add more than this because it will make silver too hard which very hard to work by hand tools. While Sterling silver have silver content 92.50% with other metal, Sterling silver is machine work product that can add more material and get more strength than Hill Tribe silver. So there are no Lead and Chromium which cause of Allergy.