How to Identify An American Sterling Silver Flatware Pattern
American Sterling silver flatware is a fascinating area of research whether you're a reseller, or a serious collector. The internet provides us with loads of information about hallmarks and maker's marks on sterling silver. Identifying your sterling flatware piece's maker and pattern is not only possible, but can be a lot of fun!
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Instructions
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First of all we're assuming we know that the flatware piece we have is, in fact, sterling. For example, I was recently asked to sell a few vintage sterling flatware pieces for a friend. The spoon in these pictures is one of them. The first step I took was to try to find out who made the piece. I needed to look at the maker's marks on the back of the spoon, which I did, using a magnifying glass.
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There are 3 marks on this sterling flatware piece. I could see a lion, an anchor and a fancy letter "G". I went to a website www.925-1000.com to their American silver marks page. (see resources below). Since I had a letter "G" as a starting point, I went to the "Initial Marks" page on that site and found the G's. I quickly found my exact marks next to the maker "Gorham". This is exciting!
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That was an easy example. If your marks don't have a convenient letter, or if you can only see 2 out of the three maker's marks, try typing what you can see into Google. Type "lion" and "anchor" and "sterling" and you may come up with the information you're looking for.
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Now that we know our sterling silver flatware maker is Gorham, the next step is to find out our pattern. I usually go to Replacements.com and go to their silver section. I click on "Gorham" and then start scrolling through the patterns. Again, an easy example since I can see fairly quickly that my pattern is called "Buttercup". You could also try using the Replacements.com search engine. Type in Gorham, sterling, flowers and it should narrow your results down a bit.
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Identifying American sterling silver flatware can be a bit time consuming but well worth the effort. I know my sterling spoon's maker and pattern and now I'm ready to list on eBay!!
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Tips & Warnings
British sterling and other countries have different systems of marking their silver so more research is needed to identify those patterns.
This can be somewhat tedious and time consuming, so if you're not successful right away, leave it and come back to it later.
