Free guide

Sterling vs silverplate: how to tell what you have

The difference is worth real money: solid sterling is paid by the troy ounce of silver, plate is paid per pound of material. Here is how to sort your own drawer at the kitchen table, and where the home methods reach their limits.

Step 1: read the marks (this settles most pieces)

Prefer to look at pictures? Every mark below is drawn out at a readable size on our what is my silver worth page, next to a calculator that prices your piles.

Turn the piece over. Makers marked almost everything, and the marks rarely lie. You are sorting into two piles.

Marks that mean solid silver

  • STERLING or STER
  • 925, .925, 92.5
  • Lion passant: the small walking lion of ENGLISH hallmarking, usually with a town mark (a leopard's head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a crown for Sheffield until 1975 and a rose after it) and a date letter
  • A thistle or a rearing lion beside a three-towered castle (Edinburgh), or a crowned harp (Dublin): Scottish and Irish sterling. Neither carries a walking lion, so the absence of one proves nothing
  • A seated Britannia figure with a lion's head, or 958: Britannia standard silver, purer than sterling and the most valuable mark in this list. Not to be confused with Britannia metal, a tin alloy with no silver in it
  • 800, 830, 835: continental European solid silver, lower fineness but solid
  • COIN, 900: older American coin silver, 90% solid
  • STERLING plus a Canadian maker's name: Canadian solid silver

Marks that mean silverplate

  • EP, EPNS, EPBM, EPC
  • A1, AA, Triple Plate, Quadruple Plate
  • "Silverplate", "Plated", "Silver on Copper"
  • "Nickel Silver", "German Silver": contain no silver at all
  • 1847 Rogers Bros., Wm Rogers, Wm A Rogers, Rogers & Bro.
  • Community, Community Plate, Oneida, Holmes & Edwards, Deep Silver
  • Regency Plate: plate, despite coming from a trusted Canadian jewellery house

The classic trap: "1847 Rogers Bros." is the most misread mark in Canada. The 1847 is the company's founding date, not the year your spoons were made, and it does not mean sterling. Everything under that name is plate. The reverse trap also exists: a British piece with no word "sterling" anywhere, only tiny pictorial hallmarks, is often solid silver that families assume is plate. That one cuts both ways, though, so do not treat pictures as proof on their own: plate makers on both sides of the Atlantic deliberately stamped rows of little lions, anchors, crowns and stars in shields to make their goods look assayed. If EP, EPNS, A1 or the word plate appears anywhere on the piece, the pictures are decoration.

Step 2: home tests that actually help

  • The magnet test. Silver is not magnetic. If a strong magnet grabs the piece firmly, it is not solid silver. But beware the reverse: nickel silver, copper and brass are not magnetic either, so passing the magnet test proves nothing by itself.
  • Wear points. Look at the high spots: the tips of fork tines, the back of a spoon bowl, raised decoration. Plate wears through, showing a warmer yellow or grey base metal under the silver. Solid silver wears but never changes colour underneath.
  • Weight and feel. With two similar spoons side by side, sterling usually feels denser and softer in the hand, and it rings slightly when tapped rather than clunking. This takes practice and convinces no one at a bank, but it is a useful tiebreaker.
  • Seams and edges. On trays and hollow pieces, plate over copper sometimes shows a coppery line at rims and seams where the layer has worn.

Step 3: know the tests that lie

  • Tarnish proves nothing. Both sterling and plate tarnish black, because both have silver at the surface.
  • Polish proves nothing, and it costs you money. Both polish to the same shine, and aggressive polishing removes silver and collectible value. Please do not polish anything you plan to sell.
  • "It was grandma's good silver" proves nothing. Plate was marketed as good silver for a hundred years. Families believed it, honestly, for generations.
  • Home acid kits damage pieces, and on plated items they read the surface layer, which IS silver. They routinely "confirm" plate as solid.

When you cannot tell: photos first, then the machine

Professional buyers use XRF analysis, which reads the actual metal content in seconds without damaging the piece. This is why our answer to "I am not sure" has two parts. First, email photos of the marks to contact@silverplatecanada.ca: we will tell you honestly what you have before you ship, and whether it is worth sending at all. Second, for the mixed box, every piece is identified individually on camera, and your itemized receipt shows what each category weighed and tested as. Solid pieces are quoted to you in writing, plate is paid at the published pound rates. Just remember: anything you would want back is cheaper kept out of the box, because a return trip is at your shipping cost.

Mis-sorting at the kitchen table is the expensive mistake here, in both directions: sterling sold as plate is money burned, and plate hauled around town for sterling quotes is a weekend wasted. Sorting is our job. Do the marks, photograph the doubtful ones, send the box.