Burning bowls and candle holders are best if you can get silver ones at a reasonable price. However, and more so as silver prices start going up toward their fair value, people are going to find it more difficult to afford silver bowls. It is now selling at around 20 toilet papers a troy ounce, with its fair value closer to 120. Given that I view gold's fair value at 3600 toilet papers an ounce and silver is supposed to be 1/16 that of gold, an ounce of silver could pop up to 225 toilet papers without warning.
Now, how many ounces are there in a decent sized burning bowl? And not one made of silver foil, either. One that is going to hold up to the way one would normally treat a bowl and be big enough to burn what you have to burn. You can begin to see why silver is impractical, even if it is ideal. If you are working on the astral, you have the luxury of working with ideal materials. And silver is recommended.
For those of us who cannot afford a silver burning bowl, I favor stainless steel or aluminum. A good quality stainless bowl is adequate in size to hold your flames, sturdy enough to last a lifetime, and be a reasonable price. That is what I recommend for the average person who doesn't have enough funds to go all out and buy pure silver. You can get silver plated, if you choose. Silver plated bowls cost more than plain stainless, the plating wears off in time, and is not as good as solid silver--however, if you wish silver and cannot afford solid, silver plating might be an option.
