Nearly everybody will have held
or used something that is silver plate, cutlery, cruet sets, place mats, trays,
teapots. You name it someone will have made it in silver plate. So just what is
silver plate. To give it its correct title it is Electroplated Nickel Silver or
EPNS. Wherever you found metalware being formed you would find EPNS ware. The
two main centres for production of EPNS wares were Birmingham and Sheffield.
There is a very good website relating to the makers marks for plated silver and
can be found at http://www.silvercollection.eu/electroplatesilver.html
Such makers as Hukin and Heath (Birmingham) and James Deakin (Sheffield) to
name but two.
The process of making
electroplated nickel silver is formed when a thin layer of pure or sterling
silver is deposited electrolytically on the surface of a base metal. Common
base metals include copper, brass, and nickel silver (an alloy of copper, zinc
and nickel) also Britannia metal, which is a tin alloy with 5–10% antimony. Electroplated
materials are often stamped EPNS for electroplated nickel or silver, or EPBM
for electroplated Britannia metal. These should not be confused with Sheffield
plate which fact was a cheaper alternative and created by a sandwich process of
two sheets of nickel fused one either side of a sheet of copper. Which is why
if you exceptionally house proud and want your silver plate to shine ready for
when friends and neighbours come to visit after a few years of polishing you
would start to see traces of the base metal starting to show through and the family
silver as noted in the family journals would then be discovered to not be the silver
teapot that great grandma had always claimed.
Some manufacturers cleverly made
their EPNS marks to look in such a way that without a magnifier the novice
collector would think they had something which was silver and upon closer
inspection would find it not to be. The age old adage of all that glitters is
not gold, is true in this instance. If you think you have bought yourself a
bargain piece of silver look closely it may be plated. In the end buy it
because you like it and then treasure it because the men who worked in the plating
shops and foundries of Sheffield and Birmingham did so with little knowledge of
the health and safety legislation that we have today. So it is thanks to them
that you can still eat your Sunday afternoon tea with the dessert spoons your
grandma left you.
