By Rocco Clayfield, Founder & Director, GoldPaid Ltd · Published 6 August 2026
What each of the letters means
These are manufacturer stamps, not hallmarks. No assay office issued any of them and none of them certifies a fineness. They describe a process and, in some cases, a plating grade.
| Mark | What it means | Base metal underneath |
|---|---|---|
| EPNS | Electroplated nickel silver, the most common British plate mark | Nickel silver: copper, nickel and zinc |
| EP | Electroplated, base metal unspecified | Usually copper alloy or nickel silver |
| EPBM | Electroplated Britannia metal, mostly teapots and hollowware | Britannia metal, a tin-based pewter alloy |
| EPC | Electroplated copper | Copper |
| A1, A, B, C | A plating quality grade, A1 being the thickest tier | Whatever the maker used |
| Nickel silver, German silver, alpaca | The base alloy on its own, with no plating claimed | Copper, nickel and zinc, no silver |
| Sheffield Plate | Fused plate, an older and different process | Copper, with silver sheet fused on |
Why nickel silver contains no silver
Nickel silver is a family of copper, nickel and zinc alloys that look silvery and contain no silver whatsoever. A typical 18 per cent nickel silver runs around 62 per cent copper, 18 per cent nickel and 20 per cent zinc, and the family as a whole ranges from about 7 to 30 per cent nickel with copper between roughly 53 and 63 per cent.
It became the standard base for electroplating after the 1840s for one practical reason: when the plating eventually wore through on a spoon back or a knife bolster, the metal underneath was pale rather than coppery, so the wear was less obvious. That is also why worn EPNS can pass for silver across a room and never under a loupe.
Why plate has little or no melt value
The plating is measured in microns, not grams. A complete canteen of EPNS cutlery holds only a few grams of silver in total, spread thinly across dozens of separate surfaces. Recovering it means stripping the plate chemically from the base metal and refining what comes off, and the cost of doing that on a domestic-sized lot exceeds the value of the silver recovered.
So the honest position is the plain one: postal buyers do not buy plate for its metal, and we do not either. Anyone offering to buy a canteen of EPNS at a per-gram silver rate is not describing the metallurgy accurately. We would rather tell you before you pay for postage than after.
Where plated silver is still worth money
As an object rather than as metal, and that market is a real one. Good plate in sound condition, complete sets with their canteen, and pieces by respected platers hold secondhand and antique value. Elkington, Mappin and Webb, Walker and Hall, Christofle and WMF are names worth looking up before anything goes in a charity bag.
Old Sheffield Plate is a separate case again. Made from roughly the 1740s to the 1840s by fusing sheet silver to a copper ingot and rolling the two together, it predates electroplating entirely, and good examples are collected in their own right. It is usually identifiable by a coppery bloom where the silver has worn and by seams where the silver sheet was folded over an edge.
The route for all of that is an auction house, a specialist dealer or the secondhand market, not a refiner. That is not a route we compete on, and saying so costs us nothing.
How to tell plate from solid silver in two minutes
- Look for an assay office mark. A British hallmark includes a town mark, a leopard head, anchor, rose or castle, struck as a separate small punch. EPNS and A1 appear as plain letters in a line, usually with a maker name and often a pattern number, and never with a town mark.
- Check the high points: the backs of spoons where they stack, knife bolsters, the rim of a tray, the foot of a candlestick. A warm copper tone or a duller grey showing through is plating wear.
- Look inside hollow pieces where you can. Plated teapots often show a different colour at the interior rim or under the lid flange.
- Do not rely on a magnet. Sterling is not magnetic and most nickel-silver bases are not magnetic either, so a negative result rules out very little. A piece that pulls strongly has a steel core and is certainly not solid silver.
- Weigh with suspicion rather than confidence. Nickel silver and sterling are close enough in density that weight alone will not separate them by hand.
- When the marks are ambiguous, photograph them and ask before you post anything. It takes a minute and saves the postage.
The mixed drawer problem
Most inherited silver arrives as a mixture. A canteen is very often plated while the odd serving spoon in the same drawer is solid sterling, because the good pieces were bought separately and the everyday set was not. Sorting by eye is unreliable, which is why marks are read piece by piece rather than by the box.
If you send a mixed parcel, the plated items are identified on arrival, listed separately in the written offer at nil value, and returned to you free with anything else you decline. Nothing plated is melted, and nothing is disposed of without your say-so.
What to do next
Photograph the marks on two or three representative pieces before anything is packed. Marks are usually on the back of a spoon stem, the underside of a tray or the base of a hollow piece, and they read far more clearly under a single light at a shallow angle than under a flat overhead one.
If the pieces turn out to be solid, the process from there is straightforward: XRF assay on arrival, a written offer showing the purity found, the weight and the rate used, free tracked return if you decline, and Faster Payments within one working hour of acceptance if you do not. Offers depend on inspection, weight, purity, hallmarks, stones, condition and the market rate on the day. See sell silverware and the UK silver hallmarks guide.
Common questions
Is EPNS worth anything for scrap?
Effectively no. The silver layer is measured in microns and a full canteen holds only a few grams in total, which costs more to strip and refine than it returns.
What does A1 mean on cutlery?
It is a plating quality grade used by platers to indicate the thickest tier of deposit. It is a maker claim, not an assay mark, and it does not mean solid silver.
Does nickel silver contain silver?
No. It is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc that looks silvery and contains none. German silver and alpaca are the same material under different names.
Is Britannia metal the same as Britannia silver?
No, and the names cause a lot of confusion. Britannia metal is a tin-based pewter alloy used as a plating base. Britannia silver is a precious-metal standard at 958 parts per thousand.
Will a magnet tell me if my cutlery is plated?
Not reliably. Sterling is not magnetic and most nickel-silver bases are not either. A strong pull indicates a steel core, which does rule out solid silver.
Is Old Sheffield Plate worth more than EPNS?
Often yes, as an antique rather than as metal. It is fused plate made from roughly the 1740s to the 1840s and is collected in its own right, so it belongs with a specialist rather than a refiner.
Do you buy silver-plated items?
Not for their metal content, because there is not enough to recover economically. If plate arrives in a parcel it is listed separately and returned free with anything else you decline.
My canteen is marked EPNS but a few spoons are hallmarked. What now?
That is common. The hallmarked pieces are assayed and valued individually and the plated ones are returned. Marks are read piece by piece rather than by the box.