Silver plated or solid silver? How to tell the difference
Silver plated means a layer of silver a few micrometres thick on a base metal, usually nickel silver or brass. Solid silver is silver all the way through, with a fineness of 800 to 925 thousandths. On the outside they look alike; in value the difference is easily a factor of a hundred.
The quickest difference: the mark
Solid silver carries a fineness mark. Plated ware carries something else:
- Solid silver – 925, 835, 800, STERLING, a Dutch lion or sword, a French Minerva head.
- EPNS – electroplated nickel silver: plated nickel silver.
- EPBM – electroplated britannia metal: plated tin alloy.
- 90, 100, 120 – the silver layer in grams per twelve place settings. A thickness, not a fineness.
- A1, AI, silver plate, plaqué argent, métal argenté – silver plated.
- Alpacca, nickel silver, German silver, maillechort – copper, nickel and zinc. It contains no silver.
Recognising it without a mark
If the mark has worn away or was never applied, look at worn spots. On the bowl of a spoon or the rim of a dish, plated ware often shows a yellowish or grey core. Solid silver does not wear through to another colour.
Home tests for silver are of limited help: plated ware also leaves a black smear on a cloth. Certainty comes from a measurement.
Is silver-plated cutlery worth anything?
As silver: no. The silver layer of a complete plated cutlery set often weighs no more than 90 to 120 grams, spread over dozens of pieces, and cannot be separated profitably. We therefore do not buy plated ware, and we say so straight away.
As usable objects or branded pieces: sometimes. A complete set by a well-known maker in a canteen may still fetch something at auction or on a second-hand site. That is trade value, set by the buyer of the object, not by the silver price.
The difference in figures. A solid silver cutlery set of 2 kilos in 835 contains 1.67 kilos of pure silver. The same set in plate carries roughly a tenth of a kilo of silver as a layer, and nobody recovers that: as silver it therefore yields nothing.
What is silver
If your cutlery or dish carries a fineness mark, we buy it on weight and fineness. With cutlery, the knives are weighed separately because their handles are often filled.
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Questions about silver plated or solid silver
Is silver-plated cutlery worth anything?
Not as silver: the silver layer is a few micrometres thick and cannot be separated profitably. As a complete branded service it may still fetch something at auction or on a second-hand site.
What does 90 on cutlery mean?
90 means that 90 grams of silver were used to plate twelve place settings. It is a layer thickness, not a fineness: the cutlery is silver plated.
What does EPNS mean?
EPNS stands for electroplated nickel silver: nickel silver with an electroplated layer of silver. Nickel silver itself contains no silver.
Is nickel silver real silver?
No. Nickel silver, also called alpacca or German silver, is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc with no silver in it.
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Sources
Where you can verify what you have just read.
- LBMAThe London gold and silver price our daily rate is built on
- WaarborgHollandThe Dutch assay office that verifies fineness and strikes hallmarks
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