Canon law is specific about the chalice in a way it is not about most sacred objects, the interior surface that touches the consecrated wine must be gold or gilded, never bare base metal.
The gilding rule and what enforces it
A chalice may be silver, pewter or another metal on the outside, but the cup itself is gilt, and if the gilding wears through with use it must be re-gilded before the vessel is used again, a job sent to a specialist goldsmith rather than done in-house. This is a practical rule as much as a symbolic one, base metal reacts with wine over repeated use in a way gold does not. A damaged or deconsecrated chalice is not discarded or melted down casually, parishes more often retire an old chalice to a sacristy collection, a diocesan museum, or occasionally return it to the community that donated it.
Who is permitted to handle it
A consecrated chalice is traditionally handled only by an ordained minister or an instituted acolyte, not by lay servers, though post conciliar practice has relaxed this in many dioceses for extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. Historically a bishop consecrated a new chalice with an anointing of chrism, a rite now generally simplified to a blessing. The shape has varied by period, the wide shallow medieval cup giving way to the taller, narrower stem and foot form still used today, a change driven partly by the paten resting directly on the cup between uses.