Silver plating, in addition to being decorative, has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal. It is highly ductile, malleable, and solderable. Silver tarnishes easily. Matte silver plate is used extensively for finishing electronic components where silver's mechanical properties of silver plate alone may not be enough and the design engineer feels that appearance may also be an important consideration. Tin Tin plating is normally done to impart solderability to variety of base metal substrates.
Tin is a silvery, blue-white metal that is ductile, solderable, and covers very well.
The solderability of time can be affected by the substrate, since several metals tend to react with and migrate into the tin forming relatively non-solderable intermetallic layers. Of particular concern is that if the tin is to plated over brass, copper or zinc die cast. The zinc will migrate into the tin and severely limit the shelf life of the finished parts. Tin can be plated wither matte or bright. Although the characteristics of each are comparable.