Silver or Plate? Four Tests Before the Hallmark

Most household silver is not silver. Electroplating arrived commercially in the 1840s and produced enormous quantities of plated tableware, and separating it from sterling takes seconds without any specialist knowledge.

Look at the wear points

This is the most reliable test and needs nothing at all.

Plate is a thin layer of silver over a base metal, and it wears through where an object is handled or rubbed. Look at the back of a spoon bowl, the rim of a handle, the underside of a teapot spout, the high points of any decoration.

Worn plate shows a yellowish, brassy or grey patch where the base metal shows through. The transition is gradual and the patch is exactly where you would expect rubbing.

Sterling is the same metal all the way through. It thins and softens with wear but never changes colour, because there is nothing different underneath.

Weight

Sterling is denser than the nickel and copper alloys used as plate bases, and the difference is noticeable in the hand once you have compared two pieces.

A sterling spoon feels heavier than it looks. A plated one feels about right for its size, or slightly light. This is a comparative test rather than an absolute one, and it works well when you have both to hand.

The magnet

Silver is not magnetic. Nickel and steel are.

A magnet that sticks means base metal, so the piece is plated or not silver at all. A magnet that does not stick proves less, since some plate bases are non-magnetic copper alloys, but it eliminates a large category quickly.

Use a strong magnet and test several points, since handles and bodies are sometimes different materials.

Sound

Tap a piece gently and listen. Sterling rings with a clear sustained note. Plated base metals give a duller, shorter sound.

This works best on flatware and hollowware with a free edge, and it is the test silversmiths use instinctively.

Then the marks

Only after the physical tests, because marks are the easiest thing to misread and to fake.

British sterling carries a set of hallmarks including a lion passant for sterling standard. American sterling from the later nineteenth century onward is usually marked "sterling" or "925". Plate is marked EPNS, EP, A1, or with a maker's name and no standard mark at all.

The absence of a standard mark on an otherwise well-made piece usually means plate. The marks that date an object exactly covers reading full hallmark sets, which give the town, the year and the maker.

Before you polish

Do not. Polishing removes metal, and on plate it removes silver that cannot be replaced. Tarnish is a surface compound that protects what is underneath, and heavy polishing of a plated piece is the fastest way to wear through to the base.

What not to clean covers this properly, and silver is the case where the damage is most often done with good intentions.

Coin silver and continental standards

Not everything unmarked is plate. American silver before about 1860 is often coin silver, roughly 90 percent pure rather than sterling's 92.5, and it is marked "coin", "pure coin", "dollar" or with a maker's name alone.

Continental European silver uses different standards and different marks: 800 and 830 are common in Germany and Scandinavia, 950 in France. A three-digit number in the 800s on an unfamiliar piece is a silver standard rather than a pattern number.

So an absent lion or "sterling" mark means the piece is not British sterling, which is a narrower claim than not silver at all.