what ive learned about silver

ive been buying and selling in the junk/antique world for about 30 yrs...hard to believe....and i know a LITTLE about a lot of things.....most learned the hard way....and often if i had known just a little more it would have been a whole lot better...
anyway..i would love to put some of ths fun useful stuff here on the blog...starting with silver...
here is what i have learned about buying and selling silver...its more poppular with southern people than midwestern....... sterling is what the buyers want.

IF ITS STERLING ITS MARKED STERLING....this is almost always true...exceptions...european, and mexican which is marked with numbers, like 800 825 etc....and coin silver which is from the early 1800s and i dont know but i can just tell...lol....and english...which is marked with hallmarks...which all mean something...but american sterling silver will almost always say sterling.......not always tho...

BAD WORDS... these little tricky words mean its not sterling,;;;; german silver, alpaca, alaska silver
GOOD WORDS. tiffany and george jensen or georg jensen ...these are very good words!!!
SILVERPLATE....most of the stuff out there is silverplate....most very unsaleable.... plate will say all kinds of stuff...silverplate, rogers, a1,tripleplate,sheffieldplate, community plate....but it wont say sterling........plate means ther is a thn coat of silver on base metal....you cant take it off, ...if you are out there buying most people think their good silver is sterling and really its plate..

..the difference? at our store a sterling spoon might be 15$ a plate spoon in the 1$ bucket....
i love old victorian silver plate...especially with the engraving...