Hobbies And Interests
A Happy Accident
In the 18th century, solid silver tableware was a luxury only the wealthy could afford. The first coating of flatware occurred in Sheffield, England, in 1742. Silversmith Thomas Boulshover accidentally fused silver to copper while trying to repair a knife blade. Manufacturers adopted the process and began to fuse silver front and back to sheets of copper, which were then rolled out and formed into urns or trays. The copper edges were then disguised with a coating of solid or sterling silver. The product was not solid silver and therefore provided the rich look of sterling without the high price.
Electroplating
In the mid 1830s, a new silver coating process was invented by John Wright, a British medical student. Silver oxide was dissolved in a potassium cyanide bath and subsequently reformed onto a copper or other base metal surface by means of a galvanized electric current. The technique was brought to America in 1837 and perfected in 1845 by the partnership of John O. Mead, manufacturer of Britannia Ware in Philadelphia, and William Rogers, a silversmith from Hartford Connecticut. During the late 1800s and early 1900s silver was rare and costly in America. Electroplating provided affordable silverware to those who could not afford sterling.
Rogers Brothers Silverplate
In 1847, the first Rogers Brothers trademark was stamped on their silverplate spoons. John O. Mead had dissolved his partnership with William Rogers and moved back to Philadelphia the year before to make his own electroplated silver until his company closed in 1860. William Rogers and his brother Asa subsequently joined forces to produce high quality silverplate, which soon became the best known in America.
Other Silverplate Manufacturers
In 1898, the Meriden-International Group absorbed Rogers Brothers and 17 other manufacturers of silverplate in North America. Several other silverplate companies remained outside of the Meriden-International umbrella, including National Silver, Oneida Community, Wallace Silversmiths and Pairpoint Manufacturing. All of these company marks can still be found on American manufactured antique silverplate.
Plating Marks
Many silverplate pieces carry not only the company mark, but also a plating mark used to indicate how many times an article of silverplate was run through the plating process. The more often an article was plated, the more silver it contains. Silverplate marked XS, 2XS, 3XS, 4XS were progressively more expensive to manufacture as the silver content increased. Of course, an article marked sterling was not plated at all, but was manufactured using 925 parts pure silver and 75 parts alloy written as 925/1000.