Avoiding Silver

There's a reason I avoid silver: I get weird reactions with the metal. Or something alloyed into it. Whatever. Which is, of course, why I'd favor alloys like stainless steel and lead-free pewter. And then I realized that lead-free pewter could have silver in it as well. Lovely.

Well the background of the situation is that I got this really nifty ankh I've been meaning to use for a charm on my bracelet. It was sold as "silver pewter", which silly old me figured was...well...silver-colored pewter, since most pewter's silvery anyway. Guess I was wrong. I wore my ankh a couple days, and noticed a strange black residue that showed up on the back of my hand where the pewter was. At first I thought it was leavings from the blackening treatment on the stainless steel, but then I realized that the coloring was not under the steel at all.

Then I recalled that I tended to get weird reactions from silver, and the metal would leave black residues on my skin as well. It clicked, and so I had a check online about pewter...and behold. It seems that some pewter does indeed come with silver mixed in. Lovely. Well, I've had similar situations before, and the solution's always the same: Give that sucker a coat of nail polish. QED. Still, it is an item with the exact right shape, size and appearance, so I guess I won't be hunting for a replacement.