posted 03-06-2011 08:23 AM            

1) This is silverplate.

2) How can you tell?
a) look up “Silverplate marks”
b) Look up “English Hallmarks”
c) Look up “European Hallmarks”

3) If your piece does not look like b or c then it is silverplate (most of the time).

4) If your piece has one of the exact numbers (with or with out other marks):

999
950
935
925
900
875
850
835
813 (don’t ask)
800
750

It may be silver . These numbers are the proportion of silver to copper in alloys (2 metals mixed together) that are silver in different parts of the world.Lowest is 750 (3/4 %) to highest 999 (Pure). So 800 silver is 80% silver and 20% copper.

5) But wait theres more: You find a piece with some marks like a lion over a shield and a crown with a boat and the number 938???
Its silver plate because English Sterling marks might have a lion but never over the shield (always in), it may have a crown but never with a boat and it will never have 938 or any other number (ok I lied ... sometimes English companys will put 925 along with the English marks because they are selling it in America, go to #6).

This is where much confusion comes in, the 938 or for that matter any number not in the list above is usually a factory inventory-stock type number NOT the purity of the silver alloy. BUT one of the above numbers could be a stock number not the alloy content! - this is why it seems confusing.

6) In America since 1860 ish all silver has been 92.5% also known as STERLING - if your piece is marked with either 925 or STERLING or both chances are it is!

7) Now we start to get more confusing - before 1860 American silver was 90% (called coin silver) but never marked 900! Often it was not marked anything except the makers name or even just his initials - So you may have a really, really valuable piece of 18th century silver history that belongs in a museum with just the initials EW. If so send it to me! Or go to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and they will pay you $100,000. BUT only if it turns out to be Edward Winslow not Edward Webb!! But that is the subject of a different post... Ocasionally coin silver from the 1800's will have the word “COIN” or “PURE” stamped with the makers mark.

8) No were not done yet, don’t you wish you had figured out how to post pictures now? If you noticed back in 2a that the silverplate examples looked a lot like the European marks in 2c your right. This is where seeing the differece between the types of marks will give information and that is why we need images.

Good luck, I hoped this helped.