Hi Folks. First let me say that I know zilch about silver , so bear with me here. Is this even silver? No markings at all. What the heck is it? 2" across 1 3/4" tall. Thanks for any help.
Could be, but it would be silverplated at best. How about cleaning it of the tarnish. You might find a faint mark.
Same here, unless a handle broke off at some point and there aren't any signs of that. Probably silverplate, but check anyway.
Testing stone and 18k gold acids, if you want to go that far. A rough and ready test is to try polishing it. Real silver cleans up relatively easily. Plate is a pain in the behind.
2" across seems rather large for a napkin ring, though not impossible. Perhaps a decorative holder for a votive candle? I could imagine a row of these on a stand in a church.
I am going to go with plated then. I used flitz polish on a silver chain a while back and it was basically wipe on , wipe off and it was clean as could be. I just used that same flitz polish on this and it will shine but there is a bit more work involved than with the chain that was marked 925 ITALY. Plus the chain was just as tarnished but it wiped away easily. So this must be plated. Kevin.
What would the test for that be? Would plating scrape away with a knife and be obvious? Is that a bad idea?
You often see small table items - salts, s&p shakers and such- with this kind of reticulated design to hold cobalt glass containers. But most of those would have a bottom plate, not open like this.
Not sure what it’s purpose was, but it definitely appears plated. If you zoom in on your first photo at the top you can see what appears to be part of the plated layer has chipped off. If you zoom into the second image you can see how rough the slits/cutouts looks which suggests to me it was cast out of a base metal and then silver dipped.
