what does this symbol mean?

Silver plate, pewter and cast iron marks

The marks on silver-plated flatware and teapots, nickel silver, pewter and old cast-iron skillets, and what each one says about the metal and its maker.

Silver plate 5 symbols

Pewter 1 symbol

Cast iron 2 symbols

About silver plate, pewter and cast iron marks

The marks on old silver plate, pewter and cast iron were nearly all struck or cast by the maker, not by any assay office or government. They say what the metal is, who made it, or how good the maker claims it is. The pages here take each mark in turn: what it means, who used it and when, and who owns it today where it is a trademark.

Silver plate

Plate looks like silver because only its surface is silver. Sheffield plate, made from the 1740s, is copper with a sheet of silver fused onto it before the piece was shaped. Electroplating, which the Silver Society dates to Birmingham around 1840, puts a thin layer of silver onto a finished piece by electric current, and it replaced fused plate within about ten years, according to the V&A. The letters EPNS and the rest of the EP family name the metal under the plating, most often nickel silver, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc that contains no silver. Words such as quadruple plate are a maker’s claim about how much silver went on.

Marks made to look like hallmarks

The Silver Society notes that neither Sheffield plate nor electroplate carries silver marks, and that makers often struck their letters in a row of small shields so that they looked like them. A British hallmark is applied by a United Kingdom assay office to an article of precious metal (Business Companion, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s guide), so a row of EPNS shields is the maker’s stamp.

Pewter

The oldest marks here are pewterers’ touchmarks. The Pewter Society describes a touch mark as a pewterer’s trade mark, recorded in London and Edinburgh on the touch plates kept by the pewterers; other stamps, such as a crowned rose or the letter X, made claims about the ware. In the US today the Federal Trade Commission’s guides let a piece be marked pewter only if it is at least 900 parts per 1,000 Grade A tin.

Cast iron

American foundries cast their names into the base of their cookware. Griswold of Erie, Pennsylvania, sold its early hollow ware as ERIE and later used a cross inside a double circle; Wagner Ware of Sidney, Ohio, decided in 1891 to cast the name of its town on every piece, the Shelby County Historical Society records. The same owner, the Randall Company, bought both firms in the 1950s, and the two names were sold together after that.

Sources

  1. Identify Your Silver (The Silver Society), Identify Your Silver: an introduction to British hallmarks, The Silver Society, Marks that look like hallmarks
  2. Candlestick, Sheffield plate, ca. 1780 (V&A), Victoria and Albert Museum, Explore the Collections, object O326057, Sheffield Plate candlestick, England, ca. 1780, Victoria and Albert Museum, Historical context
  3. Fork, electroplated nickel silver, ‘Potosi Silver’, ca. 1880 (V&A), Victoria and Albert Museum, Explore the Collections, object O25259, Victoria and Albert Museum, Summary
  4. Nickel silver (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Nickel silver”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, article text
  5. Hallmarking (Business Companion), Business Companion quick guide: Hallmarking (England, Scotland and Wales), last reviewed July 2025, Chartered Trading Standards Institute (Business Companion), Approved hallmarks
  6. Touch marks (The Pewter Society), The Pewter Society, “Touch marks”, The Pewter Society, Touch marks
  7. The Pewter Collector (Massé, 1921), H. J. L. J. Massé, The Pewter Collector: A Guide to English Pewter with Some Reference to Foreign Work (1921), Internet Archive text (Boston Public Library copy), Internet Archive, Pewter Marks, pp. 139–141
  8. Guides for the Jewelry, Precious Metals, and Pewter Industries (16 CFR Part 23), 16 CFR Part 23 (1 January 2021 edition), Federal Trade Commission, published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office, § 23.9(b)
  9. Griswold Manufacturing Company 1888–89 Catalogue and Price List, Griswold Mfg. Co., Erie, Pa., Catalogue and Price List 1888–9, Internet Archive text, Internet Archive, opening letter
  10. Evolution of the Griswold Trademark (The Cast Iron Collector), The Cast Iron Collector, “Evolution of the Griswold Trademark”, The Cast Iron Collector, Evolution of the Griswold Trademark
  11. Wagner Manufacturing Company (Shelby County Historical Society), Rich Wallace, “Wagner Manufacturing Company”, Shelby County Historical Society, Industry (January 1998), Shelby County Historical Society, Sidney, Ohio, Industry: Wagner Manufacturing Company
  12. The Story Behind Wagner (Wagner Cast Iron), Wagner Cast Iron, “The Story Behind Wagner”, Wagner Cast Iron, 1952; 1957

Last reviewed October 8, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research