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wgmccarthy99

Silver or silver plated?

8 years ago

I got a few items from someone recently and I want to know if they are sterling or just silver plated. There's a coffee pot, a cuo, and an ornate tray. The cup and the tray have makers marks but none of them say whether they are sterling or plated.

Where should I take these to have someone knowledgeable look at them?

Here's some pictures

Also, Im wondering if anyone might be able to tell me what this handle is made of. At first it looKS like wood, but on one side it's peeling a little bit and you can tell it is not wooden

Comments (9)

  • 8 years ago

    Neat! The handle could be bone. Could the mark on the cup include the word "Sheffield"? Looks like ".....LD". I think that is an old silverplating process--hope someone who knows something can help. PS Co. is probably Poole Silver Co.

  • 8 years ago

    All are plated...The tray for sure electro plated and probably the rest too. The handle is wood and has been poorly treated. The PS is indeed Poole silver and does say sheffield....however Poole was not inbusiness when the good old Sheffield plate was made ( which is not often marked as such) so their shefield is simply electro plating over copper rather than nickle silver.....which means that when it wears off copper shows through no a white metal.
    What is the marking on the coffee pot? And what does the inside and bottom look like? And the inside of the lid? There is a possibility that could be Old Sheffield, or perhaps even Sterling.....but not likely. Have you looked for marks in odd places, like the inside of the lip on the lid and at the base of the spout?


  • 8 years ago

    I totally forgot to take some more pics of the pot. Needless to say, I got a little less interested in the pieces after finding out they were just silver plated.

    Here's some pics of inside the pot, under the lid, and the bottom of the pot. I've looked all over it and I can't find any marks anywhere.


  • 8 years ago

    Regarding your coffee pot....I would suggest... that as you are sure it's not wood and bone being a more expensive type of handle (bone handles by this time were so 19th century) to use on a mass produced circa early 20th century pot that hasn't bothered with a makers mark...the handle is probably made from a type of bakelite/phenol formaldehyde plastic becoming very popular at that time as a cheaper way of producing a non heat conducting handle.

  • 8 years ago

    I wouldn't doubt it but then again I'm no expert

  • 8 years ago

    my first guess was bone, because on one side of it there is what is similar to a lamination peel of a coin, and it just feels like bone to me, but I could see plastic too. I just can't believe it's wood unless there is some kind of way of treating wood that wood change it like this.

  • 8 years ago

    I would say that that coffee pot has been resilvred....it looks to be in perfect condition....and doing so would remove any maker's marks.


  • 8 years ago

    Not so. Re-electroplating is such a thin coating process (measured in microns) that any original marks would clearly still be visible.

    There are still a myriad of late EPNS coffee pots, tea pots and part tea services still on the market.

  • 8 years ago

    I have one.....the marks have disappeared....Depends on how well it's replated.


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