posted 10-12-2003 04:51 PM              

I am looking at a small decoration of silver horses. The horses are presumably made of silver. There is a name imbedded in the metal that says something like "L. Soprani".

I am trying to figure out if this decoration is made of silver or is it some other metal, and does anybody know the name of L. Soprani as a sculptor or an artist?

Thank you.

posted 10-12-2003 08:51 PM              

L. Soprani is not the only marking. It also has 925 stamped on it and some other mark is present there. That other mark however is so small that I will need a very powerful magnifying glass to see what the letters or numbers are.

I wonder how can I have this tested to ascertain the metal content?

By small decoration I mean it 1 foot long by 1/2 foot wide and few inches high, depicting horses emerging from the ground or may be water.

posted 10-12-2003 09:00 PM            

Still, you can assume then that this is probably sterling. Any jeweler should be able to test the metal for you.

Since you describe this as "small" and the size you indicate is NOT small in many ways, could you please give us an idea of weight. A piece that large, unless it is super thin, is likely to have a reasonably hefty weight if it is sterling.

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Anuh

posted 10-12-2003 09:43 PM            

As to the '925', the degree of trust you may have in the presence of a metric fineness number is directly related to your confidence in recognizing the actual mark(s) that support it whether national guarantee marks or manufacturers' marks. A number alone means nothing. Can you describe the marks, please?

posted 10-12-2003 11:24 PM            

Arg(um)entum,
I don't have a picture. The number 925 is encircled in a small oval. There is one more mark stamped which looks like this: "Gal,.L'ine"

Thank you for your responses.

posted 10-21-2003 07:02 PM            

Some years back, I went to the auction of the Living Estate of Anita Bryant. Included in this sale (but questionably belonging to her since many of the things appear to have been from a shop that had closed) were 6 silver Remington statues on marble columns. The original information on them was that they were sterling silver; however, during the auction, the auctioneer changed his tune and started talking about how the originals at 100% sterling had problems with breakage, so the later runs were done with 80% and then later 60% silver alloy.

As it turned out, the woman who bought all six of these found out they were silverplate and all the markings on them were bogus.

So, marked or not, it pays to learn about the item you want to buy, preferably before you hand out thousands of dollars!

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Anuh