I know during the Viking age jewelry was used in trade and social rank displays. I am curious about the use of bronze vs silver in the social hierarchy. Would bronze arm rings and jewelry be considered more elite over silver because it shows you have wealth but don't need to barter because it wasn't commonly used for currency? Would Silver be considered more high status to be covered in because it shows physical wealth on hand you could hack up and use?
Thanks for any responses. Would really like to know where bronze and silver fall in the social hierarchy!
As was the case elsewhere, silver was a rarer and more expensive material and was therefore prized more highly.
Silver was not commonly used for currency as-such, since by and large there wasn't any during the Viking Age. Domestic coinage was only introduced in the very last decades. Silver was traded by weight, not by face values of coins (and there are many finds of scales to show it). Although units of weight were adapted to coin weights - e.g. in Birka the weight of a Dirham seems to have been a standard unit. Nevertheless coins and other silver objects were frequently cut in half ('hacksilver') if necessary to achieve the correct weight.
There's no reason to think the usage of silver for coins would make less desirable as jewelry. The evidence suggests the opposite; foreign coins were often converted into jewelry. This is likely more to do with appreciation of the art of the coin than the fact that it's a coin. As I said, coins weren't really valued as-such.
The practice of cutting coins and using them as jewelry continued past the end of the Viking Age as well.
