Silver Plated vs Sterling Silver: How to Tell the Difference

Sterling is silver all the way through. Silver plated is a thin layer of silver on top of something else.

Both are genuinely silver on the surface, which is why they're hard to tell apart in a photograph and easy to tell apart after a year of wearing them. Below we'll cover what each one is, the quickest ways to tell which you're holding, how to read the marks, and the gap in British law that makes plated silver so unpredictable.

Jump to:

• What Silver Plated Actually Is
• What Sterling Actually Is
• The Rule With No Number In It
• How to Tell Them Apart
• Reading the Marks
• Is Silver Plated Real Silver?
• How Long Does Plating Last?
• Side by Side
• Which Should You Buy?
• FAQs

What Silver Plated Actually Is

A base metal with a thin layer of silver bonded to the outside of it, almost always by electroplating: the piece goes into a solution containing dissolved silver, a current runs through it, and silver deposits onto the surface.

The technique is a British invention, and an accidental one. In 1743 a Sheffield cutler named Thomas Boulsover was repairing a knife handle when he found that silver and copper, heated together, fused into a single sheet, and that the fused sheet could then be rolled without the two layers separating. That was Old Sheffield Plate, and it let ordinary households own things that looked like silver for the first time. Electroplating replaced the fusing method in the nineteenth century, but the idea is the same one Boulsover stumbled into.

The base underneath is usually copper, brass or nickel silver. That last one is worth knowing about, because nickel silver contains no silver at all. It's a copper-nickel alloy named for its colour. So a piece marked EPNS is silver on the outside and, underneath, a metal with no silver in it whatsoever.

The silver in the coating is real silver. That part isn't a con. What makes plated pieces so variable is that nothing tells you how much of it is on there, and the answer ranges from a respectable layer that lasts years to a film you could wear off in a season.

What Sterling Actually Is

Sterling is an alloy rather than a coating: 92.5% silver with the remaining 7.5% usually copper, mixed evenly through the metal. That's what the 925 mark records.

It's alloyed because pure silver is too soft to make jewellery from, and 92.5% is the point where the metal becomes hard enough to hold a clasp and survive being worn without the colour or value shifting. Cut a sterling chain in half and the inside looks exactly like the outside, which is the whole difference in a sentence.

Britain recognises four silver standards: 800, 925 sterling, 958 Britannia and 999 fine. Sterling is the one you'll meet almost every time, and we've gone into the grades properly in the difference between silver and sterling silver.

The Rule With No Number In It

Here's the part that explains why plated jewellery is so inconsistent, and almost nothing written on this subject mentions it.

British law is unusually strict about solid silver. Any silver article over 7.78 grams must be sent to one of four assay offices, independently tested, and hallmarked before it can be sold as silver. Not marked by the maker. Tested by somebody with no stake in the sale, under the Hallmarking Act, with criminal liability for a false mark. Very few countries go that far.

For silver plating, there is nothing. No minimum thickness, no minimum weight of silver, no independent test, and no possibility of one, because a hallmark certifies the metal an article is made of rather than a coating applied to its surface. A plated piece is structurally outside the system that protects you on a solid one.

Compare it to gold, where at least a number exists somewhere: American FTC rules set a floor of 0.175 microns for gold electroplate, famously low but measurable, and reputable makers work to it because it is the only agreed benchmark going. We've written about why in what gold plated actually means. On the silver side there isn't even a low number to point at.

So "silver plated" is one of the least informative phrases in jewellery. Two pieces can carry the same words on the same shelf and differ by a factor of twenty in how much silver is actually on them. The only things that tell you anything are the price, the weight, and whoever made it.

How to Tell Them Apart

Four checks, roughly in order of how much they'll tell you.

1. Read the mark

This settles most cases in five seconds. A hallmark, or 925, .925, STERLING or STER., means solid sterling. EP, EPNS, EPBM or SILVER PLATED means coated. The full list is in the next section.

A full British hallmark is the strongest signal available, because it carries a sponsor's mark and an assay office mark alongside the fineness, and it means an independent office tested the metal. A bare 925 with nothing beside it is the maker's own claim, which is how most of the world does it and is worth rather less.

One important caveat. Silver articles under 7.78 grams are exempt from hallmarking, and plenty of chains and light pendants fall under that. A missing hallmark on a light piece proves nothing at all. On something substantial it's a genuine warning sign.

2. Look at the wear points

This is the most reliable test there is, and it needs nothing but your eyes.

Look at the clasp, the edges, the back of a pendant, the inside of a band, anywhere that takes constant contact. On a plated piece those areas eventually show a different colour underneath, usually warmer, pinkish or yellowish depending on the base. On sterling they just get shinier, because there's nothing to wear through.

A silver-coloured piece that's gone patchy at the high points is plated. One that's gone evenly dark all over is sterling with tarnish on it.

3. Try a magnet

Silver isn't magnetic. Neither is copper or brass, so this won't catch every plated piece. But plenty of plated jewellery is built on a steel or nickel-bearing core, and those will pull. A magnetic response rules sterling out immediately.

4. Weigh it in your hand

Sterling is denser than brass and considerably denser than a hollow plated piece. If you own one piece you're confident about, it becomes a reference for everything else. A chain that looks substantial and weighs almost nothing is telling you something.

For the full set of tests, including the ice test, which is the best home method for confirming silver rather than ruling it out, see how to tell if silver is real.

Reading the Marks

Most of the confusion on this subject lives in the abbreviations, so here they all are.

Three of those deserve a second look.

EPNS is the one that catches people, because it contains the word silver twice and describes an object that's mostly not silver. Electroplated nickel silver means a silver coating over a nickel silver base, and nickel silver is a copper-nickel alloy with none in it.

EPBM is its cousin. Electroplated Britannia metal, where the base is a pewter-type tin alloy. Confusingly, Britannia metal has nothing to do with Britannia silver, which is 958 and genuinely more silver than sterling. Same word, opposite ends of the range.

And A1 means nothing at all. It looks like a grade and it's a maker's own designation with no standard behind it, in the same family as "premium plated" on the gold side. If a piece leans on a term like that instead of a fineness number, the term is decoration. The symbols stamped on jewellery covers the whole vocabulary, and what 925 means covers the sterling mark in detail.

Is Silver Plated Real Silver?

The coating is. The piece isn't.

That distinction matters more here than it does with gold, because the amounts involved are so different. A gold-plated piece at least has a benchmark somewhere behind it. A silver-plated piece has none, so "real silver" can describe a layer thick enough to outlast you or one you could scratch through with a fingernail, and the phrase covers both.

The honest way to read it: plated jewellery is a base metal object with a silver finish. You're buying the design and the look, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to buy. You're not buying silver in any quantity that matters, and it has essentially no resale value as metal.

How Long Does Plating Last?

Nobody can tell you, and anyone who gives you a confident number is guessing. Without a thickness standard there's no baseline to work from.

What's predictable is the order things go in, because it's driven by contact rather than by the plating:

• Rings go first. A hand takes more abrasion in a week than a neck does in a year.
• Bracelets next. Constant contact with desks, sleeves and doorframes.
• Chains hold up well. Mostly air on both sides, and the links move rather than rub.
• Earrings last longest. Almost nothing touches them.

You can extend any of it by keeping plated pieces away from chlorine, salt water, perfume and cleaning products, and by taking them off before the gym. But you're slowing an ending rather than preventing one. Sterling, by contrast, can be polished indefinitely, and how to clean sterling silver covers every method including one that puts silver back rather than taking it off.

Side by Side

Which Should You Buy?

Buy sterling if you're going to wear it. Anything that goes on most days should be solid, because plating and daily wear are in direct opposition. Sterling costs more up front and it's the only one of the two that survives.

Plated makes sense in specific cases: a piece you'll wear occasionally, a style you want to try before committing to it, or a design that simply doesn't exist in solid silver at a price you'd pay. Those are real reasons, and going in knowing what you're buying is the whole point.

What isn't a good reason is assuming plated is a cheaper route to the same thing. It isn't the same thing. It's a base metal object with a finish, and the finish is the part that ends.

What We Make

We don't sell silver-plated jewellery, which is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.

Our 925 Collection is genuine sterling silver, solid throughout, and behaves exactly as this page describes: it tarnishes and polishes back, because the silver goes all the way down.

Everything else in our silver-tone range is solid 316L stainless steel finished in rhodium. It's worth being precise about how that differs from plating, because the word "finished" could sound like the same thing. It isn't, for one reason: the metal underneath is already silver-coloured and already inert. On a plated piece, wear exposes a different metal, usually a reactive one. On ours, there's nothing underneath that would look wrong or mark skin, because steel doesn't corrode and contains no copper to react.

That's why it's what most of our silver chains are built on, and it's not silver, which we say plainly rather than leaving you to work out.

FAQs

What's the difference between silver plated and sterling silver?

Sterling is 92.5% silver the whole way through. Silver plated is a thin silver coating over a base metal, usually copper, brass or nickel silver. The silver in a plated piece is real, but it's a surface rather than the object, and it wears through.

How can you tell if jewellery is silver plated or sterling silver?

Start with the mark. A hallmark, or 925 or STERLING, means solid. EP, EPNS or SILVER PLATED means coated. If there's no mark, check the wear points: clasps and edges on a plated piece eventually show a different colour underneath, while sterling stays the same colour all the way down.

Is silver plated jewellery real silver?

The coating is genuine silver. The piece isn't solid silver, and there's no minimum for how much silver has to be on it, so the amount varies enormously between one plated piece and another. What's underneath matters more than the plating does.

Can silver plated jewellery be hallmarked?

No, and this is the clearest line between the two. A British hallmark certifies the metal an article is made of, not a coating applied to it, so no amount of silver plating can ever earn one. If a piece carries a full hallmark it is solid. If it is plated, the most it can carry is a maker's abbreviation like EPNS.

Does silver plated tarnish?

Yes, at first, because the surface is silver and silver tarnishes. Once the plating wears through you're looking at the base metal instead, which can darken, discolour or mark skin depending on what it is.

How long does silver plating last?

There's no standard answer, and that's the honest problem. Plating thickness isn't regulated for silver, so one plated piece can last years and another can wear through in months. A ring goes fastest, then a bracelet, then a chain, then earrings.

Does silver plated turn your finger green?

Not while the plating is intact. Once it wears through, a copper or brass base can react with the acids in your skin and leave a green mark. It's harmless and it washes off, but it tells you the coating has gone at that spot.

What does EPNS mean?

Electroplated nickel silver. The plating is silver, and the base underneath is nickel silver, which despite the name contains no silver at all. So an EPNS piece is silver on the outside and a copper-nickel alloy the whole way through underneath.

Is silver plated worth anything?

Almost nothing as scrap, because the amount of silver on it is tiny and recovering it costs more than it's worth. Some antique silver plate has value as an object rather than as metal, and Old Sheffield Plate in particular is collected, but that's about the maker and the piece rather than the silver.

Which should I buy, sterling or plated?

Sterling, if you intend to wear it regularly. It costs more up front and it's the only one of the two that survives being worn. Plated makes sense for occasional pieces, for trying a style before committing, or when the design matters more than the material.

Where to Go From Here

Read the mark, then look at the clasp. Those two checks separate solid from plated faster than anything else, and between them they'll answer the question on almost any piece you own.

And remember the asymmetry: sterling can be independently tested and certified, and silver plating cannot be, by definition. That's most of why one is predictable and the other isn't.

Have a look through the 925 Collection if you want solid silver, or how to tell if silver is real if you've got a piece you're unsure about.