How much is my silver worth?

Less common, and all of it still plate bought by the pound at the published price.

• EPBM

  Electroplated Britannia metal. Silver over a tin alloy, common on teapots, coffee pots and trays.

  Silverplate: paid by the pound

  Britannia METAL is not Britannia STANDARD. One is a tin alloy with no silver in it; the other is solid silver purer than sterling.

• Triple 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 pound

  Quadruple plate holloware is paid at the published holloware price, not the flatware price.

• 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 pound

  Worth 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 pound
• Silver on copper

  Exactly what it says: a silver skin over a copper body. Plate, and usually old.

  Silverplate: paid by the pound
• 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 pound

  Sheffield is also a real assay town, so Sheffield sterling exists and is solid. The word on its own does not decide it.

Sterling is not the only solid mark. European 800, 830 and 835, old coin silver and the small British picture-punches are all solid silver too, and they are routinely thrown out as plate. If your piece carries something you cannot match here, photograph it and ask rather than assuming.

• 

  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: priced off the market

  English 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: priced off the market
• 

  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: priced off the market

  Do 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: priced off the market
• 

  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: priced off the market
• Scottish 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: priced off the market

  We 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: paid at its own rate

  Not the sterling rate. 800 silver is 80 per cent pure and is paid at its own published price, $503.48/lb today, against $585.13/lb for 925. Both are many times the plate price, and both follow the metal market. 830 and 835 are not on the published list, so they are quoted to you in writing before anything is processed.

• COIN, 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 writing

  Often carries nothing but a maker's surname beside it. No number and no word sterling does not mean plate. Coin silver is solid silver: it is tested and paid at the solid silver rate for the purity it reads.

• 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 silver, paid at the sterling rate.

  Solid silver: priced off the market

  Several 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.

These do not say sterling, and they still fool people in both directions.

• 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 pound

  Look 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 pound

  This 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 price

  Still worth sending, at the published copper-nickel price rather than a silverplate price. Nevada silver, Brazilian silver and similar names are the same story.

• Britannia 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 price

  Plated over Britannia metal it will usually say EPBM, and that is silverplate.

• 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: priced off the market

  Priced 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, and it is worth nothing to us.

  No value, but we recycle it for you

  You do not have to pick it out. If it is already in the box we recycle it for you at no charge, and your receipt shows it at no value. Just do not pay to ship a box of it on its own. A magnet sticking to a knife BLADE is normal on almost every knife ever made, plated or solid: test the handle, not the blade.