Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:



Silver is generally marked as to content, but not always. Look for
numbers, barring anything else. Coin would be 900, but several nations made
silverware of even lower silver content, which I encountered as a refiner.
I've seen silver marked as low as 720. That means, naturally, that the
silver content is (or should be) 72%. It's still fairly good for color at
that alloy, but it's obvious it's not sterling, which is 92.5%, which you
likely know. As I recall, the lower silver content was common in
Scandinavian countries.

You can test with Schwerter's solution, made up of potassium dichromate,
distilled water and reagent grade nitric acid, but the test isn't real
reliable, and difficult to use without you having used it for a long time,
so you recognize and interpret the reaction. It's a super good test to
determine the presence of silver, or not, but not great for determining
percentages. I know of no easy test for that, unlike the scratch test for
gold.

While I feel you may have silver, you also could find you do not. Cutting
the tang as you did, if it's plated instead of solid, the action of shearing
will often smear the pure silver (from plating) across the shorn area such
that it will test silver, but some careful cleaning (filing) will usually
disclose if there is white metal beneath the silver. To do that, test with
a pure drop of nitric acid. If the are is silver plated, it will turn a
creamy white color, but the notch you should file into the corner of any
item being tested, and filed deep, will instantly turn green. The white
metal is usually an alloy of either nickel or copper, each of which yield a
green or blue solution. It's the fastest test to determine if an object is
solid silver, or plated, assuming it is not marked. I always used this
test in conjunction with the Schwerter's solution to remove doubt. Each
take but seconds. If an item is worn well, it can be a non-destructive test.
Anywhere the silver has worn away, Schwerter's won't turn blood red, which
it does only with silver.

Having said all that, your heads up observations, particularly the rapid
heat transfer, indicate you do have a silver alloy. We own several sets of
sterling flatware. It's amazing how quickly the temperature of your food
transmits to your hands. Very unlike plated flatware, and especially
stainless flatware.

Marks are not always reliable. Many objects made in Mexico are marked
silver, but are not.
A lion is often used, or at least used to be used, in the UK to mark
sterling, so look for that as well.

Harold



Thank you for the information. For what it's worth, these say Albert
Pick Co. on the shank. I looked 'em up and they made all kinds of stuff,
from sterling to plate so that wasn't any help.

John