A volunteer's guide to silver marks, sterling and plate.

The most useful thing a charity shop volunteer can learn about silver is the difference between sterling and plate. Sterling silver is real silver. Silver plate is a thin layer of silver over a base metal and has very little scrap value, though it can have antique or maker value separately. The five marks you'll see most often are 925, sterling, the small lion image (called the lion passant), EPNS and A1 plate. If you can recognise those five marks and tell the difference between something that feels heavy-and-warm versus light-and-tinny, you'll catch the great majority of silver items that come through a donation room. The rest of this guide gives you the marks, the typical formats they appear on, and the half-dozen mistakes that cost charities the most money.

In most charity shops, volunteers are the first pair of hands on every donation. By the time an item reaches the manager, it's already been roughly sorted. If a volunteer can do a 20-second silver check at the sorting tray, the manager doesn't have to second-guess every spoon and bracelet later in the week.

What I'm not asking you to do is become a silver expert. You don't need to know who Hester Bateman was or what Sheffield 1842 looks like. (Though if you're curious, our silver hallmarks guide covers more.) The goal here is to recognise five marks, feel the weight in your hand, and know when to put something in the "ask first" tray instead of pricing it as plate.

1. 925

This is the most common silver mark in the world. It means the metal is 92.5% pure silver, which is the standard for sterling silver. You'll see it stamped into:

• The inside of silver rings.
• The clasp or small ring near the clasp of a silver chain or bracelet.
• The post of stud earrings.
• The back of pendants.
• The underside of small modern silver dishes, cups and ornaments.

If you see 925, the item is sterling silver, full stop. There's no real ambiguity.

2. "sterling"

Sometimes you'll see the word sterling written out instead of the number. Common on items imported from the US, where this is the standard mark. Same meaning as 925: real silver, 92.5% purity.

3. The lion passant

This is the small image of a walking lion, side-on, with one paw raised. It's the official UK assay mark for sterling silver. You'll see it stamped alongside (or near) the maker's mark and the date letter, usually on the back of UK-made silver.

The lion is small. Pick the item up, turn it over and look for a cluster of small stamps. The lion will be one of them.

If you see a lion passant, the item is UK sterling silver. This is the mark that distinguishes British sterling from many imitations.

4. EPNS

EPNS stands for "Electro-Plated Nickel Silver". It is not silver. It's a thin layer of silver electroplated onto nickel silver, which is itself an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc (no silver in it). The EPNS mark is the giveaway that an item is plate, not sterling.

You'll see EPNS stamped clearly on the back of plated cutlery, plated tea sets and plated trays. The mark is usually large and obvious. Some pieces also say "Electro Plated" or "Silver Plated" in full.

EPNS items have very little scrap value. They can have antique or maker value if they're old and well-made (Mappin and Webb plate, Walker and Hall plate), but as raw silver they're worth almost nothing.

5. A1 plate

A1 is an old quality grade for silver plate. You'll often see "A1" stamped alongside or near a maker's name on Victorian and Edwardian plated cutlery. Like EPNS, it indicates the item is plated, not sterling.

If you see A1, treat the item as plate. As with EPNS, antique or maker value may apply separately, but raw silver value is minimal.

Two further marks come up often enough that volunteers should recognise them, though you don't need to memorise them.

958 is the mark for Britannia silver, which is 95.8% pure silver (more pure than sterling). Britannia silver is less common than sterling but does appear on UK-made items. Treat as real silver. The hallmark next to it will be a figure of Britannia (a seated lady) rather than a lion.

800 and 835 are continental silver standards, common on European silver (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy). The number tells you the purity directly: 800 means 80.0% silver, 835 means 83.5%. Both are real silver, just lower purity than sterling. Worth flagging.

Most charity volunteers spend their first weeks not finding marks. The marks are usually there. They're just small and in slightly unexpected places.

Cutlery. Look at the back of the handle, near the bowl of a spoon or the stem of a fork. Marks are usually a small horizontal row.

Tea sets and pots. Look on the bottom of the pot, milk jug or sugar bowl. Hold the item upside down (carefully) and check the foot rim.

Trays. Look on the underside, near a corner or edge.

Rings. Look inside the band, on the inner curve. Use the phone's flash.

Chains and bracelets. Look at the clasp. If the clasp is plain, look at the small ring soldered next to the clasp. Marks are tiny here.

Pendants and lockets. Look on the back, near the bail (the loop the chain passes through).

Earrings. Look on the post or near the hook.

Small ornaments. Look on the base, often on a small flat patch.

A useful habit: every time a piece of jewellery comes in, before you do anything else, turn it over and check the back for marks. It takes two seconds and it's the highest-yield habit a volunteer can build.

Marks are the first signal. Weight is the second.

Silver is heavy. A solid silver spoon feels noticeably weightier than a plated spoon of the same shape. The difference is striking once you've compared the two. Sterling teaspoons weigh roughly 30 to 50g each. Plated teaspoons weigh half that or less.

Real silver also has a particular sound when you tap it gently. It rings rather than clunks. You don't need to do the sound test in a busy shop, but if a piece has no obvious marks and feels heavy, the tap test is a useful tiebreaker. Hold the spoon by its end between thumb and finger, let it dangle, and tap the bowl gently with another spoon. Sterling rings musically. Plate goes "tink" and dies.

What you should not do is bite the item. The "bite test" works on pure gold (very soft) but is unreliable on silver and looks alarming in a charity shop. Stick to the marks and the weight.

These are the recurring slip-ups I see most often in photos from charity shops. If you can avoid these six, you'll catch most silver value.

Mistake 1: assuming a tea set is plate just because it's blackened. Sterling tarnishes to a dark grey-black, especially in crevices. A blackened tea set is just as likely to be sterling as it is to be plate. Check the marks.

Mistake 2: pricing single tablespoons in the costume jewellery bag. Sterling teaspoons get into jewellery jars by accident. If a spoon is in the jewellery bag, check it for marks before bagging.

Mistake 3: throwing out tarnished items as "ruined". Tarnish is surface only. A polished sterling spoon and a tarnished sterling spoon are worth the same in scrap.

Mistake 4: assuming Sheffield-made means plate. Sheffield made a lot of silver plate, but Sheffield also made enormous quantities of sterling silver. The town name doesn't tell you which one. The mark does.

Mistake 5: missing the EPNS on a beautiful Victorian tea set. Plated tea sets are often more beautifully decorated than sterling ones (because they were cheaper to make and the decoration was the selling point). The decoration doesn't make it sterling. Check the mark.

Mistake 6: dismissing modern, minimal pieces as plate. Some of the highest-value modern silver pieces look surprisingly plain. A minimalist sterling pendant from a designer maker might have only a small 925 mark and no decoration at all.

Three steps.

1. Put the item in the "ask first" tray. Don't bag it with costume. Don't put it on the shop floor.
2. Tell the manager at the next handover, or photograph the tray and send it on WhatsApp 07375071158.
3. If the manager confirms it's worth checking properly, GoldPaid will send a prepaid Royal Mail label and the shop posts it for valuation.

That's it. The whole volunteer-level workflow fits on a sticky note.

Some plated items have collector or antique value despite having no real silver content worth scrapping. Mappin and Webb, Walker and Hall, James Dixon and Christopher Dresser pieces are examples. These are usually plate, but the maker name and the design can carry meaningful value separately.

The rule for volunteers is straightforward: if a plated item has a clear maker mark from a recognisable name, set it aside as well. The manager or e-commerce team can decide whether it's worth listing online rather than scrapping. We'd rather see a Mappin and Webb plated coffee pot priced properly than sold for £8 as "vintage decor".

If you're not sure whether a maker name is significant, photograph the marks and ask. There are several maker-specific guides on the GoldPaid site (Mappin and Webb, Walker and Hall, named-maker pottery) that volunteers can browse if curious.

For volunteer training, here's a five-minute drill that builds the skill quickly.

Get the following four items and lay them out:

• One known sterling spoon (most charity ops teams have one in a sample drawer).
• One known plated spoon (EPNS or A1 stamped).
• One costume bracelet (light, no marks).
• One real silver chain or bracelet.

Have the volunteer:

1. Pick up each item, weigh it in their hand.
2. Turn each item over, look for marks.
3. Identify which is sterling and which is plate.

Run this once at induction and once every six months. The skill sticks faster than expected, and the "feel" of real silver is something the hand learns within a couple of minutes.

Rocco Clayfield, Director, GoldPaid.