Testing Silver at Home by the consumer

A. Hi Kayla. Solder is for joining things, not making things. It might be used to connect a cup to a base, for example, or a handle to a teapot -- but a cup or base or handle or teapot would not be made out of solder. At least that's my understanding.

Regards,

A. Hi Stephanie. It could be, but I doubt it. I'd guess tin or pewter, assuming it's non-magnetic. Black tarnish is certainly not exclusive to silver, and silver tarnish doesn't usually wipe off easily. I think the overall thrust of the thread is that testing will beat guessing, and multiple types of test beat a single test :-)

Good luck and Regards,

A. Hi Penn. There are hallmarking books in the library if you wish to try to figure out who made this set. But the fact that they are not magnetic only says they're not steel. They could be stainless, tin, zinc, copper, brass, pewter, silver-free "nickel silver", silver ... almost anything. You need to run additional tests if you wish to know what metal these are made of. good luck!

Regards,

A. Hi Paula. The simplest test is to see if they say "Sterling". If they do, they're silver. If they don't, the chance of them being silver is fairly slim, and Rogers made far more silverplate than sterling. Unfortunately silver plated holloware, with few exceptions, is pretty much valueless at present -- save it for your great granchildren.

I see "We buy gold" signs on many street corners these days; I think any of those places can identify silver as well. Also, an experienced antiques dealer might have some knowledge of these. Even sterling isn't worth a lot; browse eBay [adv: item on eBay] and try to find some similar items. Better to try to enjoy them than to try to sell them :-)
Good luck.

Regards,

A. Hi Andy. If you search eBay for Webster and Sons [adv: item on eBay], you'll see generally similar items with the same star within a web. It is probably silver plated nickel silver (nickel silver contains no silver). Hopefully you like it because it's really not valuable or saleable. Good luck with it.

Regards,

Hi cousin Trinity. You probably feel that all of the previous 3 dozen postings are inapplicable to your rock, and you might be right. Still, it's best to explain why in your question :-(

Regards,

A. Hi John. If you can send a pic of your Hallmarks there is a slim chance someone will identify it. From a verbal description, unfortunately no chance (from my experience posting hundreds of these messages for 20 years now). Candlesticks are usually weighted, so even if they do turn out to be sterling, you probably can't get a scrap evaluation until they're broken open and ruined, so try to just enjoy them :-(

Regards,

Q. Thank you for your reply. These are not weighted. They are cast and hollow but quite heavy. Just done the ice cube test and this melted extremely fast leaving the sticks ice cold within seconds. Someone has scraped deep into the base of one revealing that they are one solid white metal.

Actual dimensions are 15 cms by 8 cms so not English. Could be some obscure Continental mark. They look early Georgian to me, possibly around 1760.They have removable drip inserts at the top. Lady told me they came back from Germany during WW2.

John ;)

A. Hi Lala. This thread is about how to test silver, rather than about how to identify silver from its markings, so we haven't repeated this before on this page: there is no hope at all of a reader identifying your ring from a verbal description of the markings. We have half a dozen pages about hallmarks, and with hundreds of such postings and a million readers, nobody has ever identified a single one from such lettering in 20 years now -- sorry, it's not going to happen :-(

That means, unfortunately, that you're not going to know whether it's silver or not unless you do some more tests. Apologies for the bad news, and good luck.

Regards,

A. So I am done quite a bit of testing and have concluded that the bleach test is the best for determining if an item is indeed silver.

For control, I used a 1959 Quarter (known 90% silver 10% copper). As test subjects I used 3 spoons that I thought were silver. Later I tested a necklace I bought at Walmart (labeled silver) and a cross stamped (sterling).

With the spoons, using a stainless steel spoon for control, I tried testing: magnetism, heat conductivity, electrical conductivity, weight differential and bleach. Bleach was by far the best definitive test.

All subjects were non-magnetic. Putting each spoon in a cup of ice water and measuring the temp 6.5" from the tip of the spoon was inconclusive. Measuring electrical resistance of ohms over 4cm was inconclusive. Measuring the weight of 2 quarters, 1 nickel and 3 dimes (known silver) against modern equivalence was too close to call.

However, the bleach test is very conclusive. Attached is a picture of the 3 spoons ("Royal Plate Co", "Annette Silvore", "Brazil Silver") in question, along with the 1959 Quarter, after each were partially submerged in bleach for 5 minutes. (to note I had a handful of random modern coins in the bottom of the bleach vessel for stability, in case there is concern of that), (I also believe 2 minutes is probably sufficient and most likely less damaging to the test object).

You can see that 2 of the spoons were hardly effected by bleach but the 1959 Quarter and the "Royal Plate" spoon turned "Black".

This did put me in a bit of a panic but I was able to clean off the "black" with silver cleaner. In fact, if you look at the "Royal Plate" spoon after cleaning, the "bleached" section is "cleaner" than the rest of the spoon.

I think I will re-dip the entire spoon after I get some new cleaner (as I am almost out).

After this first test was complete I tested a necklace I bought from Walmart (labeled silver, sterling I think), and cross stamped "Ster" for sterling silver I believe.

I think silver jewelry nowadays is either coated with something, or mixed with Germanium, to help prevent tarnishing.

Testing the necklace and cross you can see they both turned "black" but not as definitively as the spoon or quarter. Particularly with the cross, it looks as though there is perhaps a layer of something trying to protect the silver. But there is definite "blacking" to show the object is made from silver.

FYI, in the pics of the necklace you can see the "vessel" I used for bleach. There is also a picture of the necklace soaking in vinegar in hopes to remove the "blacking" but that did not work. For me, only silver polish removed the "black" and it takes "A LOT" of effort.

In conclusion, I found the "bleach" test to be very definitive but I would be conservative on the length of exposure to limit the "clean up" time from the test.

Blessings
Greg