For over nearly 40 years I have had to defend my Real Silver Lady corner!
People pop in and can’t believe that they cannot get a silver (coloured!) tray for S$100 or spend S$50 and get a bowl. Sorry!
I am selling Sterling Silver – the real stuff not a veneer. If melted down you would get real money so – guess what?- it costs more than plated silver!
Silver Plate is made of a base metal – usually something like nickel- which is electroplated with layers of silver. In theory a layer of plating survives a year of cleaning.
Top quality Silver Plate comes with some 40 layers of plating, so a top-quality Silver Plate producer is able to give a ‘lifetime’ guarantee. But it is still Silver Plate and not Sterling Silver!
Some well-known exclusive brands sell silver items with significantly less than 40 layers of plating. The pieces will wear through to the base yellowish colour metal quite quickly – especially if you are living in a humid climate where items need to be cleaned often.
There is no intrinsic value or resale value. Taken out of the shop and the resale value disappears.
So yes! my items are more expensive. But they are not Silver plate!
They are Sterling Silver. No – not 100% silver. That would be too soft for daily use. Silver needs a hardening agent – traditionally copper- so Sterling Silver is 92.5% silver and the balance copper.
Different countries have different ways of marking silver so you know for sure how to identify the real thing.
Just a quick Silver Lady ‘rule of thumb’ – the more the number of marks the less likely the item is to be Sterling Silver!
Look at this picture ….
Here you see two silver-coloured items. The top has plenty of marks but no lion! It is Silver Plate.
The bottom has the lion passant – the symbol used by English silversmiths since Medieval times to show an item is Sterling Silver.
The lion is the all-important mark when looking at English silver. If it is missing, then they didn’t forget to put the mark on the item, they just ‘forgot’ to make it of Sterling Silver!
Sterling silver
Two frames the same size – Which one is cheaper? The second one !
-Which one will stay silver forever? – Yes, the second one!
Check out our range of frames : https://silverframessingapore.com https://silverframeshongkong.com
There is a role for Silver Plate. There are many beautiful silver-plated items. They make excellent decoration and certainly you might get much more “bang for your buck” in terms of size.
But just beware that keen cleaning Silver Plate can bring it back to what is – base metal with a veneer- and to re-plate is expensive.
Real silver comes from many different sources – Chinese Export, Japanese Export , Indian/ Burmese
Just check the source before you spend big bucks …
So: Back to the real Silver Lady! And yes! the real thing does cost more! But it lasts forever!
Take it away from my gallery and it will retain its value.
Not expensive lah!; just value for money.