Sterling silver lightweight dinnerware alloy

Tom's precipitation-hardening work using lithium and tin in silver-copper alloys. Commissioned by a gold company (now defunct) seeking lightweight sterling silver dinnerware; rejected by Reed and Barton (~1985) because consumers prefer heavy silver for status display. Application pivoted to sterling silver baby cups, where the alloy enabled twenty-percent weight reduction.

I went off in 1984 to Tokyo for the Navy. When I came back I asked, well, have you patented it? They said, we decided there wasn't a real application. Then they asked, can you make us a partner system with sterling silver? So I tried the same thing with sterling silver. The first attempt was a failure. Sterling silver is a silver-copper alloy. On the second attempt I added lithium and tin, and it worked. Lithium and tin work on the same principle — they form a high-temperature intermetallic, they both dissolve in silver.