of the invention the microballoons are coated with silver silver is advantageous in two respects the basic chemistry for depositing a coating of silver is well known and silver is presently the least expensive of the noble metals in developing a practical method to silverplate microballoons however it has been found that concentrations and techniques must be drastically changed from the normal plating methods in contrast to the face of a sheet of glass microballoons present an extremely large surface area to a silverplating solution in the present invention it has been found that the use of typical or known formulas for silvering mirrors are inapplicable and unsuitable to the silvering of microballoons typically when used to attempt to plate microballoons these formulas result in large amounts of precipitated colloidal silver evidenced by a very dark black plating solution and very poor surface appearance of the microballoons the present invention includes a procedure that yields bright extremely thin coatings of silver upon the surface of the microballoons this procedure allows for the control of the thickness of the deposited metal and an essentially complete usage of the silver contained in solution the prior art as exemplified by u s pat no 2 871 139 teaches the use of various metal hydroxides carbonates or bicarbonates to raise the ph of the silvering solution and in general teaches that higher ph 39 s result in faster silvering powerful materials such as hydrazine.