www.925-1000.com

Hi - I'm new to this forum and would appreciate your help. I picked up this old spoon (which has obviously seen better days) at a junk shop for pennies, hoping it was solid sterling silver and could use it in the metalsmithing jewelry work that I do. The marks have me curious as to whether this is silver or silverplate. Can someone help by identifying the marks? Thanks, Liz

Hi Liz,

Welcome to the Forum.

It's silver-plated. See John Yates & Sons at: http://www.925-1000.com/silverplate_Y.html

Trev.

This appears to be a silverplate mark of John Yates & Son, a Birmingham company. So no good for melting down...

Phil

Thanks so much for the info! Darn, I was hoping it was sterling, but at least now I know it's not even worth preserving. Liz

Hello, I have a couple of maker's marks images to that I wanted to add to a "John Yates" related post. There lots on the forum already so to not start another post I have added them here. My first image shows marks similar to "Liz's spoon marks but with the additional shield mark featuring the tradename "Silvern" referenced to be used by John Yates & Sons.



It is a clear actual version of a mark shown in a reply on another Forum post. Copied below is the image from that post. It lists some marks used by "John Yates" and "John Yates & Sons".



This next image is I presume of another John Yates & Sons tradename (trademark) but I have not seen it noted previously. We see the word "Silvera" along with a "Y&S" mark.



Fishless

The "A" seems too set-off for SILVERA....perhaps just an abreviated version of that "Silver Ash." mark?