Sell silver cutlery and flatware

The lion, and the marks made to look like it

Turn a fork over and look along the back of the stem, with a magnifier if you have one, because the marks are often worn nearly flat. British sterling carries a row of small punches, and the one that matters is a lion passant: a lion walking in profile with one front paw raised. Beside it sit the maker's initials, a symbol for the assay office that tested it, and a letter giving the year. Older Scottish silver carries a thistle (Edinburgh) or a lion rampant (Glasgow) in place of the lion passant, and Irish silver a crowned harp. On a piece marked since 1999 the lion is optional, and 925 in an oval with the office mark does the same job. The silver hallmarks guide shows where the marks sit on a spoon, a knife and a teapot, and how to spot a plater's imitation row.

Marks found on cutlery

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The names are confusing. Nickel silver contains no silver: it is copper, nickel and zinc, and alpacca and German silver are the same alloy under other names. EPNS is that alloy with silver electroplated onto it, and A1 was a grade makers used for the thickness of the plating, not a standard of any kind. There is a fuller guide with EPNS, A1 and Sheffield plate explained, mark by mark.

Why knives are not like forks and spoons

A silver-handled table knife is usually a hollow shell of thin sterling, filled with pitch or resin, with a steel blade cemented into the end of it. Pick one up and it feels heavy, but most of that weight is the filling and the blade. A set of twelve knives can look like the most substantial part of a canteen and hold the least silver. Some fruit, dessert and fish knives have silver blades, and those are bought as silver.

• Steel blades, tines and inserts are not silver, and their weight is left out.
• Pitch, resin, cement and plaster filling are left out too, by estimate. They are there for weight and grip, nothing else.
• Fish knives and forks often pair a sterling handle with a plated blade. The two parts are identified separately.
• Bone, ivory, horn, wood and Bakelite handles are not silver. A piece with an ivory handle is not bought, so send photographs of it rather than posting it; if one arrives anyway it comes back to you whole, with the handle still on it. The ivory guide sets out the law and its narrow exemptions, and our own rule is in the responsible sourcing policy.
• We never open a knife handle unless you have accepted our offer. Before that, the silver in each handle is estimated from its pattern and construction and shown on the list, and an accepted offer is not changed afterwards.

Knives are still worth sending, with the right expectation, and the list says what each knife is. Weighted and loaded silver shows the same construction in candlesticks and trophies.

Continental sets, souvenir spoons and the drawer of odds

Much of the cutlery in British homes is not British and was never assayed here. Continental flatware is commonly 800, 830 or 835 parts per thousand, and some is 875, 900 or 950, stamped with a number and sometimes a small national mark rather than a British hallmark. Below 925 it is real silver at a lower standard than sterling, and it is identified by checking the metal.

• Souvenir teaspoons with enamelled crests; the enamel is not silver, and the spoon may or may not be, so look for the marks.
• Christening spoons, caddy spoons, sugar tongs, mustard spoons and salt shovels, which turn up loose in drawers.
• Serving pieces that match nothing else, such as fish slices, marrow scoops, asparagus tongs, grape scissors and stilton scoops.
• Single pieces from sets long since broken up, and pieces with a crest or a monogram engraved on them.
• Pieces with no marks at all, including some very good early ones where the marks rubbed away a century ago.

Monograms and crests make no difference to the silver and can add interest to a piece worth keeping whole. Do not have them polished out, and please do not polish the set before sending it. Polish removes a little metal every time and softens an engraved crest for good.

Photograph the canteen, then send it

Photograph the marks first. If the photographs show which pieces are plated, you can keep those at home. If you are not sure, send the whole canteen in its box, with the knives and the odd pieces from another pattern; we sort it, and anything we do not buy comes back free. The exception is any piece whose handle might be ivory: photograph it and ask before posting.

• Leave the set in its canteen box if the box will survive the post, or wrap the pieces in bundles by type and put the box aside.
• Do not polish or wash anything. Tarnish does no harm, and you do not need to separate plate from sterling.
• Wrap knives so blades cannot cut through a bag, and keep anything with a wooden or bone handle dry.
• A full canteen is heavy. Tell us roughly what you have; when you are ready to post, we arrange the postage with you and confirm the service and its cover in writing before anything is sent. Posting safely and cover explains how to pack it.
• Canteen boxes are not bought. The box comes back to you at our cost.

There is one thing worth doing at home first, and it takes ten minutes: lay the set out on a table and count it, pattern by pattern. Photograph it laid out, photograph the marks on the back of one fork, and send both on WhatsApp to 07369 296063, or ring or text that number if you would rather describe it. A complete service for twelve in a named pattern can be worth more than thirty-odd assorted pieces of the same weight, and the count tells you which you have. If this is part of clearing a house, house clearance gold and silver covers sending everything together.

When a set should stay a set

• Georgian and early Victorian flatware by well-recorded makers is collected in its own right.
• Unusual servers, such as marrow scoops, mote spoons (small pierced tea spoons), asparagus tongs and fish slices with pierced blades, are collected individually.
• Worn bowls, bent or re-tined forks, erased crests and marks polished thin make a set more likely to be sold for its silver.
• Cutlery engraved with a family or regimental crest has a history that melting would destroy.
• Antique silver against scrap sets out the questions to ask yourself before deciding.

What happens to a canteen when it arrives

1. Counted and photographedThe set is laid out and recorded as it arrived, with the count by type, before anything is sorted. Nothing is cleaned or taken apart before you accept.
2. Sorted into groupsHallmarked sterling, stamped fineness, plate and unmarked pieces are separated into four groups. A magnet picks out anything on a steel base.
3. Checked where the marks do not settle itAnything without a full British hallmark is checked for its metal; the methods used depend on the piece and are listed on the offer.
4. Listed by groupYou get a list saying what was in the parcel: twelve dessert forks hallmarked sterling, six knives listed as filled handles with the silver of each handle estimated, eight pieces identified as EPNS, and so on.
5. One offer for the lotA single written offer. Decline it and everything comes back by tracked, signed-for post at our cost. Want some pieces back? Tell us which, and we make a new written offer for the rest; the first offer stays open on its original terms for as long as it would have done. Offers, returns and payment explains both.

The plated pieces are listed too, by name, so you can read the parcel back from the page and recognise your own canteen in it. How it works covers the stages either side of this one.

What we buy, and what we leave out

Stopped before anything is treated as scrap

• A complete canteen in a named pattern by a recognised maker, boxed or not, is set aside as a possible set before anything else
• Georgian and early Victorian pieces, and anything by a well-recorded maker, are flagged so you can show them to a specialist or an auction house
• Unusual serving pieces are kept apart and never grouped with table forks
• Cutlery with a family or regimental crest is flagged, because its history may interest collectors
• Pieces with early or unusual assay office marks are looked at one by one
• Where a set may do better kept together we say so in writing, and post it back free if you would rather take it there