← Back to articles · Hobby & visiting shops ·
Sterling vs silver plate: the magnet is not the whole test
Sterling is 92.5% silver. Plate is a skin on something else. Flatware drawers are where estates go to get their feelings hurt.
A drawer of shiny forks is not automatically a drawer of money.
Sterling
.925 — 92.5% silver, the rest usually copper. Stamps: STERLING, 925, sometimes a lion on English pieces. Weighs like it. Tarnshes. Shops buy it as scrap silver, not as your grandmother’s Thanksgiving.
The pattern can add a little if it is a collected pattern. Most patterns do not. Most of what we see is melt.
Coin silver
Older American silver, often around .900. Different stamp, similar idea. Still melt unless a collector wants that exact spoon.
Plate / EPNS / “silverware”
A skin of silver on nickel or whatever was cheap. Stamps: EPNS, IS, EP, “silver plate,” a brand name with no 925. Heavy is not a good sign — the core is the weight.
We do not owe you a silver bid on plate. We may not even take it. That is not a negotiation. That is chemistry.
90% coin silver vs flatware
A bag of 1964 dimes is a known weight and a known fineness. A pile of spoons is a pile of spoons. 90% vs 40% junk silver. Junk silver vs eagles vs bars.
What to do
Look at the back of a fork. If you do not see 925 or STERLING, do not drive across town for a silver bid. If you do, bring it, let us test a spot, and do not polish it first. Silver shops have seen enough Brasso to last them.
Part of the coin shop counter wiki · visitors & collectors · NumisQ Learn