Percentage of silver in silverplate

[KenM]

Does anyone know the percentage of silver that is contained in silverplated items? Does it vary by manufacturer? Is there a document or website that one can look at to get this information?

Lets say as an example I have a WM Rogers silverplated spoon - is the silver percentage 10%, 5%, 20%

thanks

Ken

[admin]

As silverplate is a microscopically thin coating, that's kind of like asking what percentage of your living room wall is paint?
but since you asked....
The thickness of the silver layer varies from country to country, maker to maker. For an example's sake let use the German 90 gramm standard. Forum member Bahner has explained here viewtopic.php?t=7214
that 90 grams of silver are used to plate 24 pieces of flatware. Given that your average table spoon weighs about 50 grams and its coating would be about 3.75 grams, the percentage of silver would be about 7.5% of the entire weight of the piece. The equivalent of 1.6 cents in today's silver market.

Regards, Tom

ps. American plate has a tendency to be thinner, than European.

[paulh]

Modern British silver plated flatware is usually plated to a thickness of between 10 and 30 microns. The more expensive sets made by the likes of Arthur Price and David Mellor would be at the 30 micron end of the scale. As a percentage of the entire piece it would be almost impossible to calculate, but 30 microns is a lot thinner than the average cheap kitchen foil.

I should add that the thickness of plating is not always a guide to the quality, as density of the plating is equally important. There used to be things such as “Triple Plating” , a process in which the plating was burnished and then another two platings applied, repeating the process to produce a dense, hardwearing plate. This method has now been largely replaced by adding hardening agents during the plating process to achieve the same results.

Hope this helps.

Paul.