Re: Is Sterling Silver Junk Flatware a good investment?edit

A lot of silver flatware is actually silver-filled, or 20% silver over a coating of base metal. Usually you can tell the difference without melting it or testing it by bending it, silver is much softer than whatever they use with the silver fill. Usually it's brass, with jewelry, I'm not sure what the underlying metal is with flatware.
Even with a test kit, I've know pawn brokers who have been fooled by goldfilled, it will pass the acid tests quite well. So be careful of your source. Good silver filled is hard to tell from sterling. It's very hard to find 'silverware' that is actually silver now, we've looked because people like spoon rings, which we make, and at this point we are making them out of the plate and silver filled material.
Julie