How common is silver without a hallmark?

I have no clue yet if this is silver or not, but I bought it anyways because I thought it looked nice. It wasn't very expensive, but I really have no clue what to call it to try to search for a match. What would you call this to search for it?

 

It appears to be an open sugar.............and to my swiftly failing eyesight it appears to be made of stainless steel! But I have no real way to back that up.................

 

Thanks Manson,
I should have mentioned, it passed the magnet test no problems, and I also just polished it. It is definitely at a minimum silver plated, because it had normal signs of tarnish that brightened up as I cleaned it. I also think the lighting is a bit misleading. If I sit it next to my real sterling silver, it has the same warm/slightly yellow tone of silver. That says nothing about if it really is, but that's why i'm here! Thanks for mentioning sugar dish, off to search!

 

for an item such as this....I find no markings to be highly irregular leading me to surmise that it is of low quality metal.

 

Thanks Komokwa, I’ll acid test it underneath, and then it will become a coin dish on my desk, meh 70 cents I paid for it.

 

welcome...

 

In case it's not too late, I would suggest the ice cube test before getting out the acid.

 

I think the ice cube test confirmed it to me, it definitely didn't transfer the cold as fast and as far compared to another silver dish i have.

 

But did the ice cube start to melt right away?

 

please explain the ice cube test to me.......never heard of it.

 

Is it too big to me a Master Salt?

 

I can't use my silver spoon for hot soup.
It burns my mouth...
Silver is a great conductor of heat & cold......an ice cube placed on silver will melt rather quickly.....as opposed to it being placed on steel...or some other metal.

 

Silverplate on copper is almost exactly the same thermal conductivity as sterling

 

Well I didn't know that..

 

Well the somewhat decorative feet sure have a sterling look to them anyway!

 

Exactly. I asked Nate to try the ice cube test to at least rule out the stainless steel idea before bothering with acid. But the test doesn't involve anything more than seeing whether the cube starts to melt right away. It won't if the item is steel, but will if the surface of the item is silver.

 

Hi,
That is the size of the sterling salt that I had with no glass liner. I had a friend make a glass liner for it. He used a model and "slumped" it for me. He was one of those guys who made slumped glass pieces.
greg

 

I test silver or silver plate with a little drop of bleach, If it is silver or silver plate it will tarnish black, The bleach doesn't hurt the silver and can be cleaned off after with silver cleaner.

 

I just bought a little Victorian thimble holder holder in the shape of a bucket, It was really cheap and the dealer said it was just base metal but I liked it anyway.
On getting it home I cleaned it up and suspected it was silver, I did the bleach test and it tarnished a darkish grey so I thought maybe it's a low grade silver.
However I just conducted an experiment, I got out my scrap silver and tested 2 pieces of good quality silver (hallmarked) and another piece I know to be silver and they all turned the same shade of grey so I think it's safe to say my thimble holder IS silver.