How to tell if silver is real: marks and simple tests

Real silver and silver plate can look the same on a shelf. The difference shows up in the small stamps on the base, the back of a handle or the inside of a rim, and in a few simple checks you can do at home. Here is how to read them.

Start with the marks

Use a bright light and a magnifier, and look on the underside, the back of spoon and fork handles, and inside rims and lids.

American silver

• “Sterling” or “925” means 92.5% silver. American makers used the word “Sterling” widely from the mid-1800s onwards.
• “Coin”, “Pure Coin”, “Dollar” or “Standard” on older American pieces, usually before about 1870, points to coin silver, which is roughly 90% silver.
• A maker’s name (Gorham, Tiffany & Co., Reed & Barton, Towle and others) alongside “Sterling” helps date and value the piece.

British silver British hallmarks come as a set of small stamped shields:

• A lion passant (a walking lion) means sterling from England. Scotland used a thistle and later a lion rampant.
• A town mark shows where it was tested: a leopard’s head for London, an anchor for Birmingham, a crown (later a rose) for Sheffield, a castle for Edinburgh.
• A date letter gives the year. The letter style and its shield change with each cycle, so you need a hallmark table for the town to read it.
• A sovereign’s head appears on pieces from 1784 to 1890, when a duty was paid.
• Britannia (a seated figure) marks the higher 95.8% standard.

Continental silver Many European countries stamped a number for the silver content: 800, 830, 835, 900 or 925 (parts per thousand). Germany used a crescent moon and a crown next to the number, and France used a small Minerva head on its higher standard silver from 1838.

Marks that mean plate, or no silver at all

• EPNS: electroplated nickel silver, a thin silver layer over a base metal.
• EP, EPC, EPBM: electroplated, on copper or on Britannia metal.
• A1, “Quadruple Plate”, “Triple Plate”: American grades of silver plate.
• “Silver on copper”, “Silverplate”: plated.
• “Nickel silver”, “German silver”, “Alpaca”: no silver in the metal at all.
• “Sheffield plate”: the older fused plate made from about the 1740s to the 1840s. It is not solid silver, but genuine early pieces can still interest collectors.

Be careful with British-looking marks on plate. Victorian platers often stamped four or five little shields that imitate hallmarks at a glance. Real hallmarks are crisp, evenly struck and include a lion passant or a town mark you can find in a hallmark table.

Three quick checks at home

1. The magnet test. Silver is not magnetic. If a strong fridge or neodymium magnet grabs the piece, it is not silver. If it does not, that still does not prove silver, because brass, copper and some alloys ignore magnets too.
2. Look for wear. On plate, the silver layer wears through on high points, edges and the bottom of feet, and you see yellow or pink metal underneath. Solid silver looks the same all the way through.
3. The ice test. Silver carries heat very well. An ice cube on a solid silver tray melts noticeably faster than on a steel or plated one. It is a hint, not proof.

Skip scratch and bleach tests at home. They damage the surface and the value.

When to ask a professional

If the marks and checks suggest silver and the piece looks valuable, a jeweller or a silver dealer can confirm it with an acid test on a hidden spot or a non-destructive XRF reading. For a maker’s piece, an early date letter or anything you plan to sell for a meaningful sum, get an appraisal before you sell.

You can also photograph the whole piece and a close-up of the marks and let Gavel identify it. Gavel uses the marks in its identification, and Gavel Pro looks up what similar pieces sold for, with its sources. Treat it as a strong first opinion and confirm a valuable piece with a test.

More on reading marks: how to tell if gold is real, how to read porcelain marks and how to tell if an antique is valuable.