We inherited several sets of very nice (if a tad ornate for my taste) silver flatware, but included in these were 8 forks of a very plain design. They are of Japanese manufacture (her family moved to Japan in 1902 and remained there except during WW II).
Some pics are below (I hope - this is my first shot on this forum )
Hi there J Lewis, welcome to silver-collector.com. I’m no expert on Japanese silver, but generally prior to 1928 Japanese sterling was marked with the Japanese characters for “Jungin” meaning “pure silver”. Laws passed in 1928 and 1954 required a decimal number for the purity of silver such as "sterling .950). Absent these marks the odds are your forks are not sterling. This information was found on www.925-1000.com