Antique silverware collecting became immensely popular during the 19th century and the fascination continues today as collectors seek beautiful pieces from the periods they are most interested in or indeed from all of them. Whether your interest lies in silver from the Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian or any other period, you will know that hallmarks represent the date, silversmith and place in which the silver piece was made. However, here is some further useful information that will help you to purchase authentic pieces and avoid making mistakes.
Silversmiths and Their Methods
It is known that silversmiths existed as far back as 4000 BC.
The two main processes of making silver items involve the use of moulds into which the silversmith pours molten silver or taking a sheet of silver and hammering out the product over anvils.
Silver Hallmarks
Many seasoned collectors will have seen the head of a lion within some hallmarks and this was the first English hallmark ever to be used in the year 1300.
Hallmarks were primarily introduced to prevent fraud and in 1478 another symbol was introduced whereby the silver piece was also stamped with a date letter. As time moved on symbols would be added to the hallmark to identify the silversmith and the city where the item was made.
You should inspect silver pieces with separate components closely to make sure that each component is hallmarked. For example if you collect antique silver tankards with lids, both the tankard and the lid should bear hallmarks.
Repairs and Modifications
It is conceivable that a very old item of silverware may have been repaired or in some way altered, perhaps with a new lid being placed on a tankard or jug. This being the case there should be a fresh hallmark representing the silvermaker who did the repair, the date and the place where the repair took place.
It is not very practical or easy to make items from pure silver because it is a very soft metal. Therefore silver is often mixed with another metal such as copper to make it easier to work with. Sterling silver legally must contain a minimum of 92.5% pure silver in the UK. Other countries have their own standards which are many and varied.
Silver Remodelling
As applies to many products silverware tastes and styles change as time progresses so items that may have been fashionable in the William IV period were not in the Victorian era hence they were often modified. Silver tankards from one period could very easily be remodelled into milk jugs during another period. If remodelling has taken place it is more than likely that the density of silver will not be even and that some parts of the body will be thinner than others. Items on which hallmarks have been distorted, whereby the hallmarks appear smaller through compression or distorted because they have been stretched, almost invariably have been remodelled into something that differs from the original
Duty Dodgers
From 1719 to 1758 the duty payable on silver items was extremely high. This led to silversmiths, working during those years, utilising sections of redundant earlier pieces, cutting out the hallmarks and inserting them on the silver pieces they were producing hence avoiding the applicable higher duty. If you find antique silver tea pots or coffee pots where the hallmarks form straight lines on the bases, you should be wary of purchasing.
Experienced collectors of antique silverware will be aware of the many and varied ways in which you can check an antique silver item's authenticity but if you are just starting your collection, it is always wise to study authentic pieces so that you learn to recognise fakes and the idiosyncrasies of re-hammering, remodelling and modifications that prevailed throughout the various periods.
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