Featured a nice clean up

yesterday i bought a nice bunch of mixed antique silver spoons off one of my friends. this one was a bit messy, as you can see, but it cleaned up pretty nice, although i had to aply some pretty hefty cleaning to get it nice, and there is still some dirt stuck. i'll post some of the better spoons later on, with some pictures of the hallmarks, because we got some interesting usage of hallmarks in Denmark that doesn't allways make themselves too obvious, but actually is silver. but for now, here are some before and after pictures of a spoon that most people would throw away, but cleaned up to be a nice and decent small silver spoon

 

Nice improvement. Tarnished pieces can be the best buys!

 

You can do better

 

Nice job, Terry! How long did that take?

 

its always fun when you can just see what looks to be a hallmark on a tarnished, and then you take it home and clean it up, and it turns out your right

 

yeah, and this one actually revealed to have a faint old needle-engraving on the back, dated 1920, which is a round about right for this one it doesn't have any traditional halmarks, but it is flexible and it absorbs the heat from my fingers pretty fast, when i get back from christmas-new years vacation, i can test it with my test acid to confirm it but im fairly certain, ive had enough silver in my hands to know this is silver. we didn't have alpaca in Denmark in the 20's and its definately not steel, tin, or nickel and plate would certainly show, after the rather rough clean i gave it.

 

HOW did you get the green stuff to go away??!!

 

steel whool and soap its never a good idea to aply steel whool to your silver ware tho, but in this case i just had to go with it to make it presentable in any way xD

 

Eegad! Heresy!! Where's the SOS???

 

Or, was that a Brilliont solution??

 

BITE YOUR TONGUE!!!

 

Obviously someone is not only feeling their oats today . . . but sharing them as well.

 

Shuddering at the the steel wool, explains so much...

Have looked at this thread several times, on three different monitors, partially because I'm frustrated at being unable to make out the mark to the left of 'A.J.M.', but also because every time, to my eye, the spoon looks like worn silverplate on nickel silver (nysølv, alpacca), but of course pictures can be deceptive.

Mostly, I am curious about what reference source tells you that Denmark didn't have alpacca in the 1920s? Most Danish electroplate from that era would have used it as a base metal, as on the little 2⅝"/6.6cm salt spoon from my Mom's collection, posted below. In the engraved 'Empire' pattern, with the name 'Mikkeline' engraved on the back, it bears the Danish two-tower silverplate mark used from the 1890s into the 1930s, as well as the Københavns Ske-Fabrik 'Absalon' mark - there is only the tiniest area of wear on the bowl's heel, revealing the very faint yellowish cast of the nickel silver.

~Cheryl

Please forgive the hastily done pics:

View attachment 26819

View attachment 26821

 

Eh, don't know why I try to post from my phone - will reload pics from my laptop later...

~Cheryl

 

im well aware that we have had silverplate in denmark for a long time even before the 1920's but the plated metal is almost always brass, which is yellow, unlike nickelsilver, which is silver colored~ we use nickel silver as our 1 tower cutlery, thus fulfilling the 3 towers of danish flatware~ the reason im so sure this is not plate, is that the steelwhool would undoubtably have scratched through it
so the one you have and is 2 tower, is going to be plated on brass

 

With all due respect, the two-tower mark was an indicator of silverplate on any base metal, whether brass, copper, nickel silver, or whatever - and on most flatware and a good deal of the holloware, the base metal was nickel silver because the the color after wear would still be white, though a slightly different tone. After the pics of the Empire salt spoon, which I can assure you is silverplate on nickel silver, have posted a clip from a 1914 Danish catalog, showing 'English Plateware', noting that it's stamped with the 2-tower mark and has a white metal base; and a screen-shot of a strawberry spoon in the same Empire pattern as the salt spoon, noted in the description as stamped 'N.S.1. + 2 tårne'.

As said, pictures can be deceptive, but what I see in your before pics, is the yellowish tone and dull oxidation that is typical of nickel silver, with a few areas of silverplating in the cooler silver tone - the after shots, appear to show the same yellowish tone with perhaps a very slight bit of plating remaining after 'hefty cleaning' with steel wool. Still frustrated at not being able to make out the mark on the left, but might also wonder why, since it lacks 'traditional' marks, you're sure this spoon is even Danish rather than perhaps Norwegian (was there a clue in the engraving?)...

~Cheryl

 

well im afraid i must disagree with you on the plating matter i used to buy entire boxes of old silverplate at auctions and piecing them out in small portions at my fleamarket stand, and all old silverplate i have ever had have been plated on brass or copper. you are correct in the two towers not specifying the base metal under the plate, but brass as base metal is in my experience the most used, which makes good sence as brass have the same bacterial-offensive effect as silver does~ i dont know much about the english plateware, its not a pattern i have seen personally.
i dont know if it is danish actually, the pieces i bought revealed to have a set of french spoons as well, so these might be from anywhere.
but to put an end to this, im going to go test the spoon now~

 

As far as I know I have never seen British electroplate on anything other than some kind of white metal, certainly never brass. Obviously Danish practice may differ.