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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;MrNate, post: 3730281, member: 5515&quot;]Good evening all,</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;ve been very busy so sorry for not posting as much as usual. I&#039;ve been finding lots of treasures, I just haven&#039;t had space in my schedule to make good posts. I got something in the mail today I wanted to share with you, and hopefully impart some knowledge on aspiring silver hunters. As the title suggests, this is a post about &quot;tone&quot;...To be clear about the type of tone I&#039;m referring to, I pulled up Meriam-Webster&#039;s definition:</p><p><br /></p><p>Tone: (1): color quality or value, or (2): a tint or shade of color</p><p><br /></p><p>My own definition of tone as it relates to silver: your ability to discern the probability or likelihood that an item could be real silver based on how the material looks. This game is all about your <u>power of observation</u>. I&#039;m often scrolling through 1,000&#039;s of photos, and I&#039;m looking for subtle clues to discern between &quot;yeah that&#039;s probably plated&quot; to &quot;omg I&#039;m almost certain that is going to be sterling&quot;. My goal is to help you with a list of clues I&#039;ve accumulated over my time hunting for silver, and to share a recent find I purchased based on one photo and a bit of luck.</p><p><br /></p><p>Simple tone observations (generalized):</p><p><u>Real silver</u>: the metal often gets splotchy/uneven as it tarnishes</p><p><u>Plated silver</u>: the metal often tarnishes in a uniform manner</p><p><br /></p><p><u>Real silver</u>: as the metal tarnishes, it starts to look dull/soft/gray</p><p><u>Plated silver</u>: as the metal tarnishes, it starts to look brown/red especially when plated copper</p><p><br /></p><p><u>Real Silver</u>: the metal has lots of imperfections/scratches/scrapes and dings because the metal is very soft</p><p><u>Plated Silver</u>: the metal looks very shiny and almost like chrome. The metal looks sturdy and heavy</p><p><br /></p><p><u>Real Silver</u>: when it tarnishes, it looks hazy/foggy/glowing when photographed</p><p><u>Plated Silver</u>: the metal gets darker when it tarnishes in a uniform fashion</p><p><br /></p><p><u>Real Silver</u>: <u>little pockets of tarnish appear in the cracks/crevices of the piece</u>. And little random dots of tarnish form on the piece</p><p><u>Plated Silver</u>: tarnish is much more uniform and covers large parts of the piece</p><p><br /></p><p><u>Real Silver</u>: Often, the shape of the piece creates greater sturdiness/rigidity for soft metal</p><p><u>Plated Silver</u>: Often, the shape of the piece comes from the easiest way to manufacture</p><p><br /></p><p>I have more observations I would like to share, but the above notes are my basics about silver tone. With those ideas fresh in your mind, here&#039;s the item I received today. What I can tell you, is I never asked for additional photos, and I couldn&#039;t be certain what I was getting, but based on the observations above I took a small financial risk of $18 and ended up with a 282 gram international sterling bread dish. This was certainly a financial gamble, but I hope to convince a few daring souls that armed with the right knowledge, you can give yourself a much higher probability of success if you <b><u>become a student of silver tone.</u></b> Would anyone like to try to evaluate tone as I have above based on the photo below? And does anyone want to offer any other hints/tricks/clues based on the look of a piece to discern between plated and sterling?</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]313367[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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