Weighted and loaded silver: why candlesticks, trophies and knife handles weigh more than their silver

01

What loading is and why silversmiths used it

Pick up a pair of silver candlesticks made from sheet, as most from the later eighteenth century onwards are, and most of the weight in your hands is filling, not silver. Silver is costly, and a candlestick of solid silver thick enough to stand steady would have cost more than most buyers would pay. So makers stamped the visible shape in sections from thin sheet and filled the inside with something heavy and cheap. Earlier cast candlesticks are a different matter: they are solid, and can be among the most valuable silver in a house.

The result looks and feels substantial, is a proper piece of silverware, and holds far less silver than its weight suggests. The loading was poured in hot through the open base, which is why so many candlesticks have a felt or baize disc glued over the underside to close and hide the fill.

Loaded, weighted, filled

Interchangeable terms for a silver shell filled with non-silver material. American pieces are often stamped “weighted” or “reinforced”; British pieces usually carry no such mark.

Pitch

A bitumen-based filler poured hot into the shell. Dark, brittle, and smells of tar when cut.

Cement and plaster

Mineral fillers, white or grey, used in the same way and common in twentieth-century pieces.

Resin

Modern synthetic filler, found in later and reproduction pieces.

Steel rod

A central rod or threaded stud running through a candlestick or trophy stem, giving rigidity and letting sections be bolted together. A steel rod will often pull a magnet held to the stem, though a brass rod or a thick filling may not.

02

The pieces most often loaded and what to expect inside

Common weighted items and their typical construction

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The pattern is the same across all of these: the silver is where you can see it and nowhere else. A dressing-table brush can weigh many times the silver on its back, and a table knife several times the silver in its handle. Gross weight is the wrong place to start, and any figure worked out from it will overstate the silver.

03

Why gross weight misleads, and why surface tests do not help

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) reads only the near surface, a matter of microns, varying by metal and instrument. On a weighted candlestick it would read sterling silver, correctly, because the shell is sterling. It says nothing about the pitch and steel inside, which is where most of the weight is.

A hallmark on the base is just as correct and just as silent about the filling. The XRF guide explains why surface tests cannot see internal construction.

The checks that help are weight against size, a magnet and a tap. A piece far heavier than its size and the thinness of its silver would allow is probably loaded. A magnet pulling at the stem or base suggests a steel rod. A dull, dead note when the piece is tapped suggests filling behind the shell, where solid silver rings.

04

Two ways to establish the silver in a shell

There are two sound ways to establish the silver in a loaded piece, and they come in a fixed order: an assessment before any offer, and the opening, if at all, only after you have accepted one. Before an offer the silver is an assessment, and it is labelled as one.

1. Before any offer: a stated assessmentThe silver is assessed from the shell's measured thickness at accessible edges, the piece's dimensions and how it is built, and stated as an assessed silver weight. The assessment, what it rests on and how uncertain it is are all written down, and the offer rests on it.
2. After you accept: the loading comes outOnly once you have accepted an offer can the shell be opened, the filling and the rod taken out and the silver weighed. That gives a measurement rather than an assessment, and getting it destroys the piece as an object, which is why the terms rule it out before acceptance.
3. Either way: the filler and rod listedWhat is not silver is listed as filling, steel rod, felt, glass liner or wood, with an estimated weight for each before opening, so you can see what is in the piece rather than one number for the whole of it.

The share of silver in a loaded piece varies widely from one maker and pattern to the next, so no percentage rule is used, and you should be wary of anyone who quotes one. Two pairs of candlesticks of the same height can hold very different amounts of silver. What goes on the list is an assessment of your piece, not a rule of thumb applied to everything of its kind.

05

What is actually inside a pair of candlesticks

It helps to picture the inside of one.

What is inside a pair of hallmarked sterling candlesticks

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Every one of those parts does an honest job, and a loaded candlestick is not a fake. But three of the five parts are not silver, and on many pairs they make up most of the weight you feel.

You can check the construction yourself without harming anything. Turn the pair over and look for felt or baize; do not peel it off. Hold a magnet to the stem and see whether it pulls. Tap the piece gently with a fingernail and listen: solid silver rings, and a loaded shell gives a dull, dead note. These tell you more about what you have than a kitchen scale.

This is also why photographs of the base, the stem and the hallmark are worth sending before anything is packed. Loading often shows in those three views, and it is better spotted while the pair is still at home.

06

Seller risks and exceptions

• An assessment is an estimate, and it says how uncertain it is. Certainty would mean opening the piece, and nothing is opened before you have accepted. Once you accept, the price is fixed: it does not go up or down after the piece is opened. If you are unsure, do not accept yet; ask for it back or for a specialist's view.
• Opening a loaded piece destroys it as an object, and once it is open it cannot be sold as a candlestick again. Opening only ever follows acceptance, so do not accept an offer on one until you are sure it is worth nothing beyond its silver, and if you are not sure, have it looked at first.
• Knife handles hold very little silver, and most blades are steel; a hallmarked silver blade, as on some fruit and fish knives, is silver. A canteen of sterling-handled knives is usually worth more as a canteen than as a handful of shells, and the cutlery page explains how the two are told apart.
• Dressing-table sets combine thin silver backs with glass, bristle and wood. The silver is a small share of the weight, and a complete set by a known maker can be worth more intact.
• Some pieces described as weighted sterling are silver plate over a loaded base-metal shell. No hallmark, and base metal showing at a worn edge, usually give it away, and there is almost no silver in such a piece.
• Trophies are often engraved with names and dates. That does not change what the silver is, but you may want to keep the engraved plate, which can usually be taken off after you accept and sent back, if you ask beforehand.

07

When not to use the scrap route

The guide to antique or scrap silver sets out how to tell the difference. The tea sets and hollowware page explains how other hollow pieces, which are usually not loaded, are assessed, and selling silver by post covers the rest of the sideboard.