Antique silver: how to identify it by its hallmarks

Antique silver is one of the most rewarding and, at the same time, most treacherous fields of collecting. Rewarding, because well-marked pieces tell their own story: who made them, where, when and to what standard of purity. Treacherous, because fakes abound, confusion with nickel silver and silver plate is common, and a misread mark can be the difference between a 200-euro piece and a 5,000-euro one.

The hallmarking system: the identity card of antique silver

Silver marking has a history of more than five centuries in Spain. As early as the fifteenth century, the decrees of the Catholic Monarchs required wrought silver to be examined by an official marker before it was sold. The system evolved, but the principle held: a piece in order bears at least one mark identifying the silversmith, another identifying the city of origin (the town mark) and a third from the marker or assayer, the official who tested the metal and vouched for its standard.

In practice, Spanish pieces made before the nineteenth century may carry between two and five different marks. The most common are the maker’s mark (initials or a personal device), the town mark (a coat of arms, tower, animal or other civic emblem), the assayer’s mark (usually the abbreviated name of the marker, who guaranteed the standard: for centuries 11 dineros 4 granos, about 930 parts per thousand, and from the eighteenth century 11 dineros, about 916) and, in some periods, a date mark with figures of the year.

Spanish marks worth knowing

• Madrid: the bear and strawberry tree, emblem of the town. From the eighteenth century it appears alongside the so-called Court mark.
• Barcelona: the letters BAR or BARNA, often crowned or with elements of the city arms. Eighteenth-century Barcelona silversmiths produced some of the most refined pieces of Spanish silver.
• Córdoba: a lion, emblem of the city. Córdoba was one of the leading silver centres in Andalusia, especially from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.
• Salamanca: a bull on a bridge, a reference to the Roman Bridge. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Salamanca pieces are much sought after.
• Seville: the Giralda or the letters "NO8DO". Seville silver, fed by American silver, reached its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
• Valencia: the letters VAL, frequently crowned. An important centre of liturgical silver.

How to read a mark with a loupe: step by step

To examine the marks on a piece of antique silver you will need a 10x loupe (a jeweller’s loupe is ideal) and good daylight or a cool LED lamp. Marks are usually struck in discreet places: the underside of plates and salvers, inside the handle of jugs, the lower edge of candlesticks, the inside of lids.

• Find all the marks before trying to read them. Count them and note how they are arranged.
• Identify the town mark first; it is usually the most recognisable (a coat of arms, an animal).
• Look for the maker’s mark: generally initials in a rectangle or cartouche.
• Compare with reference works: Marcas de la plata española y virreinal by Fernández, Munoa and Rabasco is the standard reference on the subject.
• Photograph the marks in macro for later reference. A phone with a macro mode works surprisingly well.

Simple tests to tell genuine silver

Before turning to a professional assay, there are several non-destructive tests that help rule out silver plate and white metals such as nickel silver (an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc that imitates silver):

• Magnet test: silver is not magnetic. If a strong (neodymium) magnet sticks to the piece, it is not silver. This test rules things out rather than confirming them, since other non-magnetic metals exist.
• Ice test: place an ice cube on the surface. Silver has the highest thermal conductivity of any metal: the ice will melt visibly faster than on steel or nickel silver.
• Sound test: tap the piece gently with a knuckle. Silver gives a high, clear note with a long ring. Nickel silver sounds dull and short.
• Tarnish: silver darkens with the hydrogen sulphide in the air (the familiar black tarnish). Nickel silver tends to turn greenish over time, more like copper.
• Weight: silver (density 10.49 g/cm³) is noticeably heavier than nickel silver (about 8.7 g/cm³). With experience, you can feel the difference in the hand.

Notable Spanish silversmiths

Spanish silversmithing produced extraordinary masters. Juan de Arfe y Villafañe (1535–1603) was the most important silversmith of the Spanish Renaissance, maker of monumental monstrances such as those of Seville and Valladolid and author of the treatise De varia commensuración. In the eighteenth century, Antonio Martínez Barrio, trained in Paris and London, founded the Real Fábrica de Platería in Madrid (1778), whose Neoclassical pieces set the taste of the court. In the nineteenth century the Madrid firm of Meneses popularised silver-plated nickel silver for tableware: so-called "plata Meneses" is not sterling silver, a confusion we see often.

Common mistakes when assessing antique silver

• Mistaking Sheffield plate (copper fused with a layer of silver, invented in 1743) for solid silver. Sheffield plate has a value of its own, but a lower one.
• Assuming that every piece marked "925" is old. The numerical mark is modern; antique Spanish silver was marked with figurative punches.
• Ignoring repairs: solder, patches and later additions significantly reduce value.
• Cleaning aggressively with abrasive products, removing the patina that gives character and helps date the piece.
• Mistaking electroplate marks (EPNS, EP, A1) for sterling marks.

A veteran Madrid silversmith once told us: "Silver speaks for itself; you just have to know how to read it". He was right: the marks are there, waiting for someone to decipher them with patience and a good loupe.