Silver-plated wares

Silver-plated crockery is not inferior to silverware in its elegance and form, and is more affordable for users, more practical than silver and easier to keep clean. They entered mass production in the 19th century as a response to growing demand mainly from the bourgeoisie, who had high ambitions but limited budgets and could not afford silver. 

How did silver-plated wares come about? 

The invention of silver-plating is attributed to an Englishman, Thomas Boulsover, who combined silver and copper plate when repairing a knife. After he rolled out both sheets, the resulting sheet looked like silver. As technology progressed, the methods of making plating changed. Initially, the plating was made from brass, which was silver plated very thickly. As the plating on brass rubbed off, it revealed its true material of workmanship, so in later times plating was made on white metals, such as nickel or zinc.

What's underneath the silver-plating?

In addition to the standard maker's markings, which made it possible to identify the factory the object left, there are also marks in the form of numbers and letters on the underside, which are information about the silvering. These include:

• GALW - the GALW marking on vessels from Poland indicates an item silver plated,
• EP – on objects from Germany, this abbreviation denoted objects silver plated,
• OX – means that the object is oxidized,
• N or NS – stands for 'new silver', 'new silver' was an alloy of zinc and nickel,
• Alpaca, alpaca or alpacca - is the designation for the alloy that replaces silver in an item, popularly known as white silver,
• 0 – is the indication of double silvering,
• I/0 – this mark indicates that 1 g of silver has been used on 1 dm of surface,
• 90 or another number – this mark means that 90 (or more or less, depending on what number we have on the product) grams of silver have been used on 24 dm² of the surface of the product.