Lozenge Mark on Fork - is it Silver Plate?

[AgeUKSouthLakeland]

Hi all - I check donations for a UK charity (I did ask admin about the use of the name but got no reply so hope it's OK) - and we often get antique silver and silver plate donated, but I've never come across anything with the lozenge mark, which I'm more used to seeing on pottery, dating to around 1880.

This fork has come in with such a lozenge mark - which I've dated to 31st April 1880, with the top mark just meaning 'metal'. Does anyone know whether it is silver plated or not? It does have tarnishing that I'm used to seeing with silver and plate, but am concerned that it's only marked as metal and wondered if they did mark plate in this way back then? It's a very attractive and intricately designed piece and I don't want to describe it wrongly, as I like to raise as much as possible for the charity.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[dognose]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

If the item lacks any official hallmarks, in this case, it's safe to assume it's plated at best.

There were thirteen categories used in the British Registry tables, number 1 covering any item made of metal regardless of what type of metal was used, be it precious or otherwise. The mark may found as an additional mark on solid silver, or just cast iron. It relates only to the design and indicates only the earliest possible date of manufacture, with some designs being made for many years afterwards.

This page of information hopefully explains all: http://www.925-1000.com/registry.html

In future posts, please keep the width of your images to within the 7" (18cm) guidelines, otherwise those using smaller monitors will only see part of the image.

Trev.

[AgeUKSouthLakeland]

Many thanks for the super fast reply Trev, much appreciated, and the link is very useful too, hadn't come across that one on here before so have bookmarked it.

Kay

[dognose]

Hi Kay,

I have sent you a PM regarding your username.

Trev.