Silver & Sterling Silver What do you Know?
Anyone who has watched Masterpiece Classic or similar movies will have noticed the splendidly laid dinner tables. Crisp white tablecloths, fine bone china plates, crystal wine glasses and softly glowing silver cutlery. How many hours must have been spent polishing knives and forks and spoons, not to mention wine coolers, serving dishes, coffee pots and candlesticks!
British silver is the standard against which all other is measured, mostly because British silver has been assayed and hallmarked since around 1300. In the 700 years since, silversmiths of the British Isles have turned the gleaming metal into objects of great beauty and value. In the vast underground Silver Vaults in London, dozens and dozens of merchants sell silver in every form imaginable, from a silver champagne swizzle stick to a full size silver armchair, as well as other objects with arcane names like salver, pie-cross, epergne, chafing dish, or samovar.
These days the term silverware has come to mean household silver including dishware, cutlery, flatware, and candlesticks, made of some vaguely silver metal: sterling, Britannia or Sheffield plate silver, silver-plated base metals, even stainless steel. Silverware can also refer to hollowware (such as tea and coffee sets), trays and sporting trophies. In the United States, one even hears knives and forks made of plastic referred to as silverware.
Jewelry and silverware are traditionally made from sterling silver, which is an alloy of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. In the United States, only an alloy consisting of at least 90.0% fine silver can be marketed as "silver". Sterling silver (stamped 925 to indicate the percentage of silver) is harder than pure silver. Pure silver is only a little harder than pure gold. Unlike gold, silver has the unfortunate tendency to tarnish. Silver exposed to the air combines with sulfur and forms silver sulfide, which is black. A thin, sometimes patchy coating of silver sulfide forms on the surface of the silver. These dark spots are tarnish. Tarnish is removed by removing the silver sulfide. This can be done by removing the silver sulfide from the surface by polishing, or, tarnish can be removed by reversing the chemical reaction. With the former method, some silver is abraded with the tarnish; with the second method, no silver is lost. There is an entire industry offering preparations to remove tarnish from the surface of silver.
However, prevention is better than cure. How silver is stored is very important. There are various anti-tarnish fabrics available on the market. If silverware is stored wrapped in this special silver cloth, tarnishing is kept to a minimum. Silver pieces on display can likewise be kept tarnish free by frequent buffing with the same cloth.
The century from about 1840 to 1940 was the “golden” age of silverware. During that time, and for quite a few years afterwards, silver was the most popular wedding gift by far. A canteen (in the sense of a fitted storage box) of silver cutlery serving eight or twelve was a common gift to a daughter getting married. Cutlery in English usage refers to knives, forks and spoons, whereas in the United States it tends to mean just knives or other things that cut. An elaborate cutlery set can contain as many as eleven items per place setting: salad, fish, dinner and dessert forks, dinner, fish and bread knives, soup, dessert, tea and coffee spoons. Plus a number of servers and specialty items like pickle forks. Complicated rules of etiquette determine how this array of utensils is laid out around the dinner plate. It’s no wonder that Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts, had so much trouble figuring out what to use when. And she had the added challenge of handling an item not often seen in silver canteens: escargot pliers.