How much is my silver worth?
Three steps, about five minutes, at your own kitchen table. Turn each piece over and read the mark. Sort what you find into piles. Put the piles on a scale and this page prices them at our published rates, the same rates everybody else gets.
The short answer first
Almost all family silver is silver plated, and plate is paid by the pound. A drawer of plated flatware is real money rather than a windfall: it is bulky, it is heavy, and it is the one thing every other Canadian buyer turns away. We buy it by weight at a flat published price.
Solid silver is worth many times more, and it hides in the same drawer. A few sterling serving pieces mixed into a plated set are the difference between a modest cheque and a serious one, which is why reading the marks is worth the five minutes.
The marks settle it, and they rarely lie. Makers stamped almost everything. Below is what each stamp looks like, drawn large enough to compare against the piece in your hand, and which pile it belongs in.
Read the mark
Turn the piece over. The mark is usually on the back of a handle, the underside of a base, or the rim of a tray. It may be tiny and it may be worn. Do not polish it to read it: polishing removes metal and can rub a faint mark away completely.
Marks that mean silver plated
Plate is a thin layer of pure silver electroplated over a base metal. These marks are the most common thing in a Canadian china cabinet. Everything here is bought by the pound at our published prices.
EPNS
Electroplated nickel silver. The commonest mark of all, and what most Canadian drawers are full of. A layer of real silver over a copper, nickel and zinc base.
Silverplate: paid by the poundEP
Electroplate. The short form, usually struck next to a maker's name. Same thing: plated, not solid.
Silverplate: paid by the poundEPBM
Electroplated Britannia metal. Silver over a tin alloy, common on teapots, coffee pots and trays.
Silverplate: paid by the poundBritannia METAL is not Britannia STANDARD. One is a tin alloy with no silver in it; the other is solid silver purer than sterling. See the marks that fool people, below.
EPC and EPCA
Electroplate on copper. These often show a warm pink glow where the plating has worn through.
Silverplate: paid by the poundA1, AA and EPNS A1
Each maker's own quality grade for how thickly they laid the silver on. There was never a legal standard behind the letters, and every piece carrying them is plated.
Silverplate: paid by the poundTriple and quadruple plate
Real grades with real meaning: they described how much silver went onto a gross of teaspoons, with quadruple the heaviest of the ordinary grades. Genuinely better pieces, and still plate.
Silverplate: paid by the poundQuadruple plate holloware is paid at the published holloware price, not the flatware price.
The Rogers names
Wm Rogers, Wm A Rogers, Rogers and Bro, Rogers Bros, Rogers Cutlery, 1881 Rogers and their relatives. A large family of American plate makers whose names are on an enormous share of the flatware in Canada.
Silverplate: paid by the poundEvery name in this family is plate. The brands belong to their owners; the mark is shown here only so you can recognise your own piece.
Community and the Oneida lines
Community, Community Plate, Oneida Silverplate, Par Plate and Tudor Plate. Long-running plated flatware lines: handsome, heavy, and plated.
Silverplate: paid by the poundThe brands belong to their owners; the mark is shown here only so you can recognise your own piece.
Silver soldered
Reads like a construction method and is actually a plating grade. It is the heavy electroplate used on hotel, railway and steamship service.
Silverplate: paid by the poundWorth sending. The deposit is thicker than domestic plate and the pieces are heavy.
Hotel and railway plate
Service pieces made for hotels, railways and shipping lines, often struck with the name of the company that owned them. Plate, but unusually thick and heavy, so a box of it weighs well.
Silverplate: paid by the poundSilver on copper
Exactly what it says: a silver skin over a copper body. Plate, and usually old.
Silverplate: paid by the pound
Marks that mean solid silver
Solid silver is worth many times what plate is worth, so this is the group to slow down for. Solid pieces are quoted to you in writing before anything is processed, and nothing is processed until you accept the quote.
STERLING
Solid silver, 92.5 per cent pure, the standard used across North America. The single most valuable word you can find in that drawer.
Solid silver: quoted in writing925 and .925
The same thing as sterling, written as a number. Common on modern and imported pieces.
Solid silver: quoted in writing
The walking lion
The lion passant, struck on ENGLISH sterling for three centuries. Where you see this alongside a few other tiny punches, you are almost certainly holding solid silver.
Solid silver: quoted in writingEnglish only. Scottish and Irish silver carry different marks and no lion, so the absence of a lion proves nothing on its own.
The crowned leopard's head
London's town mark. On older pieces it wears a crown, and on later ones the crown was dropped. Seen next to a walking lion it says London sterling.
Solid silver: quoted in writing
The seated Britannia
Britannia standard silver, about 95.8 per cent pure. This is PURER THAN STERLING and it is the most valuable mark most family boxes will ever contain. It travels with a lion's head in profile.
Solid silver: quoted in writingDo not confuse it with Britannia METAL, which is a tin alloy with no silver in it and is usually marked EPBM. Same word, opposite meaning.
The lion's head in profile
The lion's head erased, the companion to the seated Britannia. The two together mean Britannia standard silver rather than sterling.
Solid silver: quoted in writing
The crowned harp
Irish sterling, struck at Dublin. There is no walking lion on Irish silver, so a piece with a harp and no lion is still solid.
Solid silver: quoted in writingScottish and other town marks
Scottish sterling carries a three-towered castle for Edinburgh, with a thistle on older pieces and a rearing lion on newer ones. Birmingham uses an anchor. Sheffield used a crown until 1975 and a rose after it.
Solid silver: quoted in writingWe have not pictured these because the reference plate our other pictures came from does not contain them. Small picture-punches you cannot match to anything on this page are a reason to photograph the piece and ask, never a reason to assume plate.
800, 830 and 835
European and Scandinavian solid silver, a little less pure than sterling but genuinely solid all the way through. Routinely thrown out as plate because the number is lower than 925.
Solid silver: quoted in writingCOIN, PURE COIN, DOLLAR
Older North American solid silver, made before sterling became the standard here. Around 90 per cent pure and sometimes lower, which is why it is tested rather than assumed.
Solid silver: quoted in writingOften carries nothing but a maker's surname beside it. No number and no word sterling does not mean plate.
Canadian sterling makers
Canadian houses marked their solid silver with their own name beside the word sterling, sometimes with a small row of picture-punches of their own design. Solid, and a named Canadian service can be worth more whole than melted.
Solid silver: quoted in writingSeveral of the same houses also sold plated lines under a separate name, so read the whole mark and not just the maker. Email us a photograph if you are unsure.
Marks that fool people
These are the ones that cost families money, in both directions: solid silver sold off as plate, and plate carried around town for sterling quotes. If you have any of these, read the note under it carefully.
1847 Rogers Bros
The most misread mark in Canada. The 1847 is the year the company was founded, not the year your spoons were made, and it does not mean silver.
Silverplate: paid by the poundEverything under this name is plate, whatever the date says. The brand belongs to its owner; the mark is shown here only so you can recognise your own piece.
Sterling inlaid
The word STERLING is stamped right there, and the piece is plate. Small blocks of sterling were let into the back of the handle where a spoon rests and wears, then the whole piece was plated over.
Silverplate: paid by the poundAfter the 1847 stamp this catches the most people, because it puts the magic word on a plated fork.
IS
Reads as International Sterling and means International Silver, a maker's mark. That company made both solid silver and plate, so these two letters on their own settle nothing.
Silverplate: paid by the poundLook for the word sterling or a number beside it. Without one of those, put it in the plate pile and let us test it.
Picture marks that are not hallmarks
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. Decoration, not a standard.
Silverplate: paid by the poundThis is why the rule is photograph it and ask, rather than picture-marks equals solid. A genuine hallmark row also carries a letter for the year, and the punches are struck into the metal rather than cast as part of the pattern.
German silver, nickel silver, alpacca
These contain no silver at all, and unless they also say EP they are not even plated. They are copper, nickel and zinc alloys named for their colour rather than their content.
Base metal: paid at the copper-nickel priceStill worth sending, at the published copper-nickel price rather than a silverplate price. Nevada silver, Brazilian silver and similar names are the same story.
Silver plate and sterling silver plate
The words silver and even sterling appear, and the word that governs is plate. This wording caught buyers in shops as well as families at home.
Silverplate: paid by the poundBritannia metal
A tin alloy with no silver in it, used as the body underneath plating. Not the same thing as the Britannia standard, which is the purest silver in this whole guide.
Base metal: paid at the copper-nickel pricePlated over Britannia metal it will usually say EPBM, and that is silverplate.
Sheffield stamped on the piece
Genuine early Sheffield plate, which carries far more silver than electroplate, is usually not marked at all. A piece actually stamped Sheffield Plate or Sheffield Reproduction is later electroplate trading on the name.
Silverplate: paid by the poundSheffield is also a real assay town, so Sheffield sterling exists and is solid. The word on its own does not decide it.
Weighted and filled sterling
Genuinely sterling on the outside and filled with cement, pitch or plaster inside for stability. Common on candlesticks and vase bases. Real silver, but far less of it than the weight in your hand suggests.
Solid silver: quoted in writingPriced on the silver we can actually recover, with the deduction shown on your itemized receipt rather than sprung on you. Keep these out of any weight you type into the calculator.
Anything a magnet grabs
Stainless steel and iron are magnetic; silver is not. If a strong magnet grabs a piece firmly, it is neither silver nor plate.
No value: leave it at homeA magnet sticking to a knife BLADE is normal on almost every knife ever made, plated or solid. Test the handle, not the blade.
No mark at all, or a mark you cannot read? Do not guess and do not polish. Photograph it with your phone camera as close as it will focus, email the picture to contact@silverplatecanada.ca, and we will tell you honestly what you have before you ship anything. That check is free and it is the cheapest step in this whole process, because a return trip is at your shipping cost.
Make your piles
Four piles cover almost every box. Sorting accurately at your own table is what makes the number on the next screen match the number on your receipt.
- Plated flatware. Forks, spoons and serving pieces marked EP, EPNS, A1, Rogers, Community and the rest.
- Plated holloware. Anything hollow or footed: teapots, coffee pots, trays, candlesticks, bowls, sugar and cream sets.
- Plated knives. Knives go in their own pile. Most of a knife's weight is its steel blade and its filled handle, not silver, which is why knives carry their own published price.
- Solid silver, coins and gold. Anything marked STERLING, 925, or carrying a walking-lion hallmark, plus any silver coins, gold jewellery or dental gold. These are quoted in writing, never weighed into the pound rates.
Then take the magnet test. Run a strong magnet over everything. If it grabs a piece firmly, that piece is iron or steel and has no value to us. Leave it at home rather than pay to ship it. A magnet sticking to a knife blade is normal and expected: the blade is steel on almost every knife ever made, plated or solid.
Getting a piece in the wrong pile is not a disaster. Every parcel is opened and sorted by us on camera, piece by piece, and your itemized receipt shows what each category actually weighed. Sorting well simply means the estimate you are about to see is the one you get paid.
Why we can publish a number at all
Most buyers will not put a figure on silverplate, and many will not take it at all. We can, because we are a metal buyer working at volume with a published price list rather than a shop guessing piece by piece. The price is flat, it is the same for a single teapot and for a pallet, and it is posted here before you ship rather than after we have your box.
Prices are subject to market changes. The prices posted on the day your parcel is processed are the prices you are paid, and they are the prices on your itemized receipt.
The three things that move your number away from the estimate are all in plain sight: a scale that disagrees with ours, a piece in the wrong pile, and a price change between today and the day your parcel lands. Nothing else.
See every published price →
The full sterling versus plate guide →
How your parcel is processed →
Silver Plate Canada. contact@silverplatecanada.ca. (416) 799-7528. Prices are subject to market changes; this sheet is an estimate, not an offer.