What I look for at thrift stores and estate sales, and what makes me put a piece right back
I've never met a vintage silver piece I didn't want to flip over immediately. Partly because the marks matter, and partly because I'm nosy. Who made it? Is it sterling? Has it spent the last eighty years serving tea, holding flowers or just sitting in somebody's dining room cabinet?
Honestly, that little bit of mystery is half the fun. So is the fact that the least glamorous piece on the table, the dark one everyone else walked right past, can turn out to be the best find.
Because here's the thing: dark doesn't mean damaged. A lot of the time it's just hiding the shine. The trick is telling harmless darkness apart from silver that's actually worn away. This is the first post in my vintage silver series, so let's start with exactly what I check before anything comes home with me.
A few words you'll hear me use
Don't worry, there's no quiz. These six words will make everything below make sense.
- Sterling. Solid silver, silver all the way through. It's at least 92.5% silver, with a little copper mixed in so it's strong enough to actually use.
- Silver plate (or "plated"). A cheaper metal wearing a thin coat of silver. When it's new, you'd never know the difference. After decades of polishing, though, that coat can wear through.
- Base metal. Whatever's under the silver coat on a plated piece. Usually copper, brass or a gray mix of metals.
- Tarnish. That dark film silver gets over time as it reacts with the air. It sits on top of the silver, which is why you can usually polish it off.
- Patina. The soft, lived-in look old metal gets from age and use. Some people polish it away. Some of us kind of love it.
- Marks. The tiny stamps on the bottom that tell you who made a piece and what it's made of. I'll decode those in the next post, so for now just know they're there.
First, I picture it in my house
Before I look at a single stamp, I ask myself one very non-technical question: where would I actually put this?
A champagne bucket doesn't need to be sterling to hold hydrangeas. A plated tray looks just as gorgeous on a bar cart. A little bowl can hold matches, jewelry, lemons or absolutely nothing at all. If I'm buying to decorate, shape and condition matter way more to me than what it's made of.
Now, if the seller's charging a sterling price, that's a different story. Then I get very interested in the fine print. Sterling costs more because the silver itself is worth money, so that price should come with a sterling mark to back it up.
My favorite shopping rule: buy for the life the piece is going to have in your home, not for the fantasy that you've found a museum treasure for $12.99. I've been just as happy with a quirky plated piece, dents and base metal peeking through, as I've been with a huge sterling Revere bowl.
Is it tarnish or worn plate?
This is the big one. Tarnish sits on top of the silver, so when you polish it off, the shine comes right back. Worn plate means the thin silver coat has rubbed away and you're looking at the cheaper metal underneath. You can polish that all day long and you'll just end up with shinier copper. One you can fix at home. The other, you can't.
The color's usually your best clue:
| What you see | What it probably is | My take |
|---|---|---|
| Brown, black, pale gold or a rainbow sheen | Tarnish. That's silver reacting with sulfur in the air (from things like rubber bands, wool, eggs and even cardboard boxes). | Usually good news! An evenly dark piece can clean up beautifully. |
| Pink or salmon patches | Copper peeking through where the plate's worn off | The silver's gone in those spots, and no amount of polishing will bring it back. |
| Yellow patches | Brass peeking through | Totally fine if you like a warm, well-loved look. Not great if you want it bright and even. |
| Dull gray patches | A gray base metal showing through | That's worn plate, not stubborn tarnish. Don't scrub yourself silly. |
| Orange-red spots | Rust, usually from a steel screw, pin or knife blade hiding inside | Silver polish won't fix rust. |
| Green or blue crust | Verdigris, the green-blue gunk copper grows when it gets damp (the same thing that turned the Statue of Liberty green) | If it's powdery, keeps coming back or is creeping out of a seam, keep it away from food and think about calling a pro. |
Quick trick in the store: tarnish usually covers a piece pretty evenly and settles into all the little crevices. Worn plate shows up in patches, right where hands and tabletops have rubbed it the most.
My five minute once-over
This is where I turn into the person tilting a tray toward the window and photographing its bottom from six angles. It's not dignified. It is useful.
- Flip it over and photograph every mark. Check the bottom, under the handles and any parts that lift off. A close-up photo is so much easier to research at home than a tiny stamp you're squinting at under store lighting.
- Tilt it toward a window or bright light. The reflection shows you worn plate, dents and scratches almost instantly, stuff you'd totally miss looking at it straight on.
- Look hard at the edges and raised bits. Rims, feet, handles and any raised decoration (little flowers, beading, swirls) get touched and polished the most, so that's where the metal underneath shows up first.
- Test anything that moves. Wiggle the handles, set it down to see if it sits level, and open and close any lids and hinges (the little joints that let a lid swing open). A sturdy piece that works is easier to use and easier to resell.
- Make sure nothing's missing. Look for liners (the removable glass or metal inner bowl in things like butter dishes and salt cellars), inserts, lids, screws and finials (the decorative knob on top of a lid). Those odd little parts are weirdly hard to replace.
Scratches, dents and somebody else's initials
Little hairline scratches don't scare me at all. Silver that's been used is going to look used, and that's not a character flaw. What I do watch for is the damage that's hard to undo: deep gouges, sharp dents, cracks, holes, wobbly feet, broken hinges and obvious old repairs. Those usually look like a lumpy, slightly off-color line where someone melted metal (called solder) to stick a broken bit back on.
And I don't mind a monogram, those engraved initials from a long-ago owner. They don't have to be mine! Sometimes they make a piece feel like it has a story. Sometimes they just make it cheaper. I'm happy either way.
When I buy, and when I walk away
I buy it when…
- The shape stops me in my tracks and I already know where it's going.
- The darkness looks like tarnish (even, and tucked into the crevices), not missing silver.
- It's sturdy, it's all there and nothing's cracked or broken.
- The price still makes sense even if the marks turn out to be boring.
- It's plated, it's pretty and it's right for my home. Honestly, that's plenty.
I put it back when…
- I like it, but I'm inventing a whole new room to justify it.
- Big patches of copper, brass or gray metal are showing and I want it bright and even.
- There's green crust that keeps coming back, rust, pitting (tiny pits eaten into the surface), plate flaking off in bits, or damage that messes with how it stands or works.
- The seller wants a sterling price and there's no sterling mark to prove it.
- It's weighted sterling and they're pricing it by weight. Weighted pieces, like a lot of candlesticks, are a thin sterling shell filled with cement or plaster so they don't tip over. That scale is mostly weighing the filling.
The best piece is the one you'll actually use
Finding sterling is a thrill. I'll never pretend otherwise. But some of my favorite pieces are plated, and they do their jobs beautifully: holding flowers, wine, hand towels, matches or jewelry, and making an ordinary surface feel a little more special.
Once I've checked what it's made of and what shape it's in, I leave room for plain old taste. The pieces I love most are usually the ones I fell for before I ever flipped them over.
Next up in the series: what all those tiny marks on the bottom actually mean. In the meantime, if you want to see some of my finds, tarnish history and all, they're in the shop, and my favorite silver for styling is on my ShopMy. Happy hunting!
The Vintage Silver Series
New to vintage silver? Start with part one and work your way through.
- How I Choose Vintage Silver for My Home (you're here)
- Sterling, Silver Plate and What Those Tiny Marks Mean
- How I Clean and Care for Vintage Silver