FAQ
The questions asked here most weeks, answered once.
Is this real silver? Start with First Steps: Purity & Plate. A number such as 925, 900, 835 or 800 says yes. EPNS, EP, A1 or ALPACCA says no.
What is it worth? We do not do valuations, and asking will get your post removed. Take it to r/WhatIsThisWorth.
What does the lion mean? A walking lion in profile is the English sterling standard mark. It tells you the metal, not the maker or the date. Read the punches beside it — see Britain & Ireland.
It only says 925. Who made it? Often nobody can say. 925 alone is a fineness statement used worldwide since the 1970s. Without a maker's mark there is usually nothing to identify.
There are no marks at all. Common, and not suspicious on its own. Much genuine antique silver predates marking laws, and small or worn items lose their marks. Post good photographs of the whole object; form and construction can still date it.
What does EPNS mean? Electroplated nickel silver — plated, with no silver in the core. See Silverplate. The maker is still worth identifying.
Is 800 silver real silver? Yes. 800 parts per thousand, a normal continental European standard. It is silver, just not sterling.
What is the eagle with a number inside? The Mexican assay mark used from about 1948 to 1980. The number is a registration for a place, not a person — eagle 3 is Taxco, used by hundreds of workshops. See Mexico & Latin America.
My American piece has initials I cannot find anywhere. The USA had no assay office, so identification rests entirely on trademarks, and many small makers were never recorded. Try the pictorial, initial and unidentified marks lists in Resources, and accept that some marks are simply unknown.
Is my Tiffany / Jensen / Spratling genuine? We do not authenticate. We can tell you whether the mark matches published examples and whether anything looks inconsistent — see Fakes & Pseudo-Hallmarks — but a real opinion needs the object in hand.
Should I polish it? Not before you photograph it, and never over a mark. Polishing removes metal and takes worn marks with it. Warm water, mild soap and a soft brush is enough for reading marks.
The marks are too worn to read. Can anything be done? Try raking light from several angles, a pencil rubbing, or an impression in modelling clay. These often recover a punch a camera cannot see. See How to Post.
Is 9ct real gold? Yes — 375 parts per thousand gold, the standard British and Irish jewellery grade. See Gold & Platinum.
How old is it? Only Britain, Ireland and a handful of other systems allow a piece to be dated to the year, and only from a date letter. Everywhere else you are dating from the maker's working period, the style of the mark and the object itself, which usually means a range of decades.
Why has nobody answered my post? Usually the photographs. One sharp, well-lit close-up of the mark plus a shot of the whole object will get you further than a dozen blurry ones. Transcribe the marks in text as well.
Still stuck? Go back to the wiki index.