UnderMiner
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- Jul 27, 2014
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Someone threw away a whole bunch of silver-plated silverware that was all acid-tested, but I knew that they probably overlooked some of the rarer lower-grade silver standards - and I was right.

In with the lot of very obvious silver-plate I found about $120 in 'lower-grade silver' which included four 83.3% silver desert forks and spoons (marked '833'), and three 75% silver ('12 Loth') serving forks and spoon from 19th century Europe. Three of these items show signs of acid testing, but the silver content of these objects is not high enough to give a positive result so that's likely why they were tossed.

I am both excited and a bit saddened by this as the 'Loth' silver standard was only used in Continental Europe prior to 1867, this silver is old and if people are throwing it away even after testing it, I can imagine that novices the world over are doing the same as they do not recognize the markings.

As for the '833' Nordic silver, this is also rare and it is understandable why people would not recognize this standard because silver from that part of the world is not often encountered compared to more common standards like Sterling. Moral of the story - learn your silver marks.


In with the lot of very obvious silver-plate I found about $120 in 'lower-grade silver' which included four 83.3% silver desert forks and spoons (marked '833'), and three 75% silver ('12 Loth') serving forks and spoon from 19th century Europe. Three of these items show signs of acid testing, but the silver content of these objects is not high enough to give a positive result so that's likely why they were tossed.

I am both excited and a bit saddened by this as the 'Loth' silver standard was only used in Continental Europe prior to 1867, this silver is old and if people are throwing it away even after testing it, I can imagine that novices the world over are doing the same as they do not recognize the markings.

As for the '833' Nordic silver, this is also rare and it is understandable why people would not recognize this standard because silver from that part of the world is not often encountered compared to more common standards like Sterling. Moral of the story - learn your silver marks.

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