Silver foil

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Was silver foil ever made of silver, or does it just refer to the colour?

[tabbypurr]

silver foil has always been made of silver

I don't think any of those 3 are useful

[Dean Hoffman]

Tin foil?

[FMurtz]

gold foil?

[Brian Gaff]

Well silver foil was made but its an entirely different thing mainly used in some scientific gear, in the cases you mean its just the colour, however I've often wondered why only one side seems to be shiny? Being mostly aluminium, one would think it would oxidise equally on both sides. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Which is not made of tin either. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Gold foil yes even copper foil. I had a reel of this. Brian

[dennis]

Aluminium foil is dull on one side because they roll it two layers at a time. The sides against the polished rollers come out shiny the sides together come out dull.

[Martin Brown]

Not any more it isn't but it was in the past back when aluminium was still a precious metal (early on more precious than gold in fact).

It wasn't until 1860 that aluminium prices started to fall and it was

1910 before the first aluminium "tin" foil appeared. The UK exponent of aluminium manufacture was Isaac Lowthian Bell a genius industrialist who went on to found the Middlesbrough iron & steel industry. He had a top hat made of aluminium made for the opening of his new aluminium plant.

Prior to 1910 tin foil did exactly what it said on the tin.

Silver foil also has a long history as does much thinner gold leaf.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Yeah, that's why it costs =A31000000 per roll.

-- =

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful g= od, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes= -- Gene Roddenberry

[James Wilkinson Sword]

On purpose? Are you meant to use it one way round and not the other? (I'm not a cook).

[Roger Hayter]

Have to (reluctantly) agree with the OP here. The foil (often tissue backed aluminium?) in cigarette packets and chocolate bars was commonly known as silver foil by my parent's generation at least. I doubt it was ever anything but a description of the colour.

[Nightjar]

Much cheaper than that:

That would equate to £1,224 for the same amount as a 300mm x 10m roll of aluminium foil.

[grabber]

That's a reasonable question, though perhaps possible to answer for yourself with a bit of Googling.

Silver foil made of real silver was the third hit for "silver foil" on Google for me:

I doubt if anyone uses "silver foil" to mean e.g. kitchen foil in marketing as it is a potentially misleading description.

It seems highly unlikely that real silver foil was every used in normal circustances for wrapping or cooking food because of the high cost for a thickness strong enough to be useful. This does not rule out its use for decoration in the way that gold leaf can be used. Indeed, this is apparently what vark is.

"Silver foil" in BrE seems similar to AmE "tinfoil" (though perhaps less common), including the understanding that the metal is really probably aluminium. I normally just say "foil".

WIWAL we used to say "silver paper" for the stuff sweets like Easter eggs were wrapped in. Perhaps this was, by rights, reserved for the version that had a paper backing, but we used it for thin unbacked foil as well.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

To me, it just refers to the colour.

When thin sheets of actual silver are used for decoration it is known as "silver leaf". Similarly with "gold leaf".

I didn't know, or had forgotten, this:

Vark (Redirected from Silver foil)

Vark, also called varak (also silver leaf, German paper), is any leaf composed of pure metals, typically silver but sometimes gold, used on South Asian sweets.

** The silver is edible, though flavorless. .... Safety Gold and silver are approved food foils in the European Union, as E175 and E174 additives respectively. The independent European food-safety certification agency, TÜV Rheinland, has deemed gold leaf safe for consumption. ** Gold and silver leaf are also certified as kosher. These inert precious metal foils are not considered toxic to human beings nor to broader ecosystems.

[Martin Brown]

Mostly used for bursting disks in pharmaceutical plants and as electrodes for connecting humans to ECG and EEG machines. Silver chloride brine electrodes make a good bio compatible connection.

Silver is entertaining to cast as molten metal - without a layer of flux on top to protect it when molten it dissolves so much oxygen from the air that when it skins over in the mould it explodes disastrously.

[GordonD]

We called it 'silver paper' but as you say it was just down to the colour.

[whisky-dave]

Depends who you're talking to. I get asked for copper foil and once brass foil and quite often for aluminuim foil but never silver foil I've been asked to get some gold leaf but not gold foil. If been asked for siler epoxy and silver pen and silver ink. if a student asked me for silver foil I'd ask them what they wanted it for and whether or not they meant aluminium foil as I have that. If they wanted silver foild I'd ask them to put it on an order formn stating how much and what type they wanted and direct them to a suitable supplier.

perhaps, although I've not used them.

[whisky-dave]

Well a flatmate that 'chased the dragon' told me that they put a coating o n aluminum foil but just one side and that you should use a lighter to burn off the coating before using it because the coating was bad for your healt h, she then asked me why I was laughing.

[Tony Cooper]

I can remember separating the foil from the paper and rolling the foil into balls for the war effort (WWII). The foil-on-paper came from cigarette packages, and almost everyone smoked in those days.

A fingernail could start the separation and the foil could be easily stripped off the paper. You can't do that with the foil-on-paper now used.

Foil balls, flattened cans, and string were all saved until collected for the war effort.