How to tell sterling silver from silver plate, with the marks we see every week
Turn the piece over and read the mark. Here are the marks that mean sterling, the ones that mean plate, and the ones made to look like something they are not, photographed on real pieces from our shop.
Turn the piece over and look for the word Sterling, the number 925, or a row of British hallmarks that includes a small walking lion. If the mark says EPNS, EP, Quadruple Plate or Silverplate, or shows only a maker's name and a pattern number, the piece is plated: a thin coat of silver over copper, brass or another base metal.
We read these marks every week, on every piece of silver that comes through our door, and every example in this post is a piece that has been in our hands.
Start with a word or a number
Sterling is 92.5% silver. The other 7.5% is usually copper, which makes the metal hard enough to use. American sterling is usually stamped Sterling or 925, often next to the maker's name. Our Edwardian mesh coin purse has "Sterling" on its frame, and a reptile-skin evening bag we had this fall was stamped "STERLING / F.P.CO." in a small oval.
Continental Europe used other standards, so you will also see 800, 830 or 835. Those numbers are parts of silver per thousand. A piece marked 800 is 80% silver: solid silver, though not sterling.
Germany made 800 its minimum standard in 1884, and from 1888 German silver carries a crescent moon and a crown next to the number. Our German sleigh salt with a cupid driver has exactly that: the crescent and crown, "800" and its maker's mark, on a sleigh drawn by a swan.
British hallmarks: find the lion
English sterling carries a row of small punched marks, and the one that tells you the metal is the lion passant, a lion walking to the left with one front paw raised. The other marks tell you the maker, the assay office (the town that tested it) and the year.
Our articulated fish vinaigrette has the full set on its tail: the William Lea & Co. maker's mark, the lion, the anchor of the Birmingham assay office, a date letter for 1817, and the head of George III. That last one is a duty mark. It shows that the tax on the silver was paid, and it appears on British silver from 1784 to 1890. Few things are as satisfying as reading a 200-year-old date off the tail of a silver fish.
The marks that mean plate
Electroplating was patented by the Elkington firm in Birmingham in 1840, and from then on almost every maker in Britain and America sold plate next to its sterling. Good plate makers said so on the base, in a few abbreviations.
- EPNS means electroplated nickel silver. The base is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc.
- EPBM means electroplated Britannia metal, a soft tin alloy.
- EP on its own means electroplate. Gorham, one of the great American silver houses, marked its plated Chantilly candlesticks EP with a model number.
- Quadruple Plate is an American term from the 1800s. Makers used it for a heavier coat of silver than their standard grade, and you will see it on the best Victorian plate from Wilcox, Meriden and Eureka Silver Co.
- Silverplate written out, usually under a maker's name. The F.B. Rogers shell dish is stamped "F.B. ROGERS SILVERPLATE".
One trap: "German silver" and "nickel silver" are the same alloy as the NS in EPNS. Neither contains silver.
Pseudo-hallmarks: made to look British
Plenty of plate carries a row of little marks in shields that look like British hallmarks at a glance. They are pseudo-hallmarks, and plate makers in England and America used them for decades.
Read them one at a time. A shell-shaped sugar bowl from our shop has "G&Co" in Gothic letters, a castle, and then a separate E and P. That E and P is the answer. There is no lion, so it is plate.
Sheffield on the base does not mean sterling
Sheffield was a silver town, and the name on a base tells you where the piece was made, not what it is made of. Old Sheffield plate, a sheet of silver fused onto copper, was made from the 1740s until electroplate replaced it in the 1840s. After that, Sheffield firms made fine electroplate and stamped the town name on it.
Our Walker & Hall spinning shell dish is stamped "Walker & Hall, Sheffield, England" with a flag mark, a model number and "A1", which is the plate grade. It also says "Warranted Hard Silver Soldered." That phrase is about the joints, which were made with silver solder instead of soft solder, a sign of a maker who built things to last.
Numbers are usually pattern numbers
A plain number on plate is almost always a pattern or model number: 2725 on the Eureka casket, 51012 on the Walker & Hall dish. The numbers that tell you silver content (925, 900, 835, 800) sit next to a silver mark, and plate makers did not use them.
When the mark is worn or missing
Look at the edges, the feet and the high points of any raised decoration. On very old plate, years of polishing can thin the silver there first, and the color underneath tells you what you have: pink or brown for copper, yellow for brass. Sterling is silver all the way through, so it has nothing to show.
A magnet only answers one question. If it pulls hard, there is iron or steel in the piece. If it does not pull, you have learned nothing, because silver, copper, brass and nickel silver all stay put.
If a piece has no mark and no wear, take it to a jeweler or a coin dealer who can test a hidden spot with acid. Until then, treat it as plate.
The marks at a glance
| Mark | What it means | Metal |
|---|---|---|
| Sterling, or 925 | Sterling standard, 92.5% silver | Sterling |
| Lion passant with town mark and date letter | British sterling, with the maker, town and year | Sterling |
| 800 with crescent and crown | German silver at 80%, from 1888 on | Solid silver, not sterling |
| EPNS | Electroplated nickel silver | Plate over copper, nickel and zinc |
| EPBM | Electroplated Britannia metal | Plate over a tin alloy |
| EP | Electroplate | Plate |
| Quadruple Plate | American plate, heavier grade | Plate |
| Maker's name with Silverplate | Plate, named by the maker | Plate |
| Sheffield, England with A1 | Made in Sheffield, plate grade | Plate |
| Shields with E and P, a castle, initials | Pseudo-hallmarks | Plate |
| A number alone | Pattern or model number | Usually plate |
Most of the silver you will find at an estate sale is in the bottom half of that table, and plate is where a lot of the best design is: swans, shells, pierced galleries and engraving you would never find on new silver today. Every piece in our silver and metalware collection names its mark in the listing when there is one.
