EPNS (electroplated nickel silver)

How to read it

The Silver Society gives EPNS as Electro Plated Nickel Silver and calls it the commonest of the marks put on plated wares to make them look like silver. Electroplating deposits a thin layer of silver on a base metal by electric current; the Society dates it to Birmingham around 1840. The base here is nickel silver, which Britannica describes as alloys of copper, nickel and zinc that are silvery in appearance but contain no silver. The State Library of Victoria’s guide to hallmarks puts it the same way: nickel silver has no elemental silver in it until plated, and EPNS cutlery and tableware are what made it popular. Howard Okie, writing on old silver in 1928, saw nothing underhand in the letters: manufacturers used E.P.N.S. to give the public an honest and accurate description of their wares.

Also searched as: e.p.n.s., epns, epns meaning, epns silver, is epns real silver.

Letters in shields

The Silver Society notes that the four letters were sometimes struck each in its own shield, so that the row looks like a set of silver marks, and that some makers added their name and spurious symbols set in shields as well. None of them is a hallmark. In Britain an approved hallmark is one applied by a United Kingdom assay office to an article made of precious metal, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s Business Companion explains, and the Society says plainly that electroplated items will not have silver marks. British assay marks such as the lion passant are struck on tested silver; EPNS in shields is the maker’s own stamp.

Names with silver in them

Some makers gave their plated ranges names that end in silver. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a Birmingham fork of about 1880 marked POTOSI SILVER, with a spread eagle in a shield, and a Sheffield fork of about 1890 by James Deakin & Sons sold as Brisbane Silver, with the word SILVER in its own shield. The museum catalogues both as electroplated nickel silver. The same Potosi fork carries a diamond-shaped design registration mark, the device described on the registered design diamond page.

What the law says about the word silver

In the UK, the Hallmarking Act 1973 lets the word silver be used on an unhallmarked article only when it is qualified by the word plated. The US Federal Trade Commission’s jewelry guides, which also cover flatware and hollowware, say the word silver should not be used for something that only has a surface layer of silver unless it is qualified to show that it is only coated. The National Gold and Silver Stamping Act names silver plate and silver electroplate among the plated goods it covers.

When electroplating began

The dates differ by a few years even within one museum. A V&A catalogue entry says Elkington & Co. pioneered electroplating in the 1830s and that by the 1840s it had replaced Sheffield plate; another says George Richard and Henry Elkington made the process commercially viable and sold licences widely in the 1840s, and that electroplate replaced Sheffield plate within ten years. Britannica dates nickel silver as a base for plating to after an electroplating plant was set up in Birmingham in 1844.

EPNS or Old Sheffield plate?

Okie tells of a collector who said her Old Sheffield included several pieces manufactured by E.P.N.S., which he compared to naming “Mr. Anonymous” as one’s favorite author. EPNS is a plated base metal, plated after the piece is made. Sheffield plate is copper with silver fused onto it before the sheet was shaped, and it was made before electroplating existed. Okie adds that nickel silver had almost entirely replaced copper as the base for plate in England by his day.

EPNS or EPBM?

The last letters name the base metal. EPBM is electroplated Britannia metal, a tin alloy; see EP, EPBM and other electroplate marks.

Who bought it

A V&A teapot of 1857 by Elkington & Co. in electroplated nickel silver was made for buyers who wanted the look of silver at a budget price: the museum notes that Elkington offered a similar engraved teapot for £4 in 1869, and a silver one could cost twice as much.