Greetings, and thank you for this forum!
I’m dealing with items after the death of two close family members and am interested in learning anything I can about an item.
It is an 8 bar toast rack. I believe the “A1” means it is silver plated, but what do all these other marks indicate?
Thank so much for your time and for sharing your knowledge.
All the best, adp
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Turn it sidewise, and you’ll see that the four letters are EPNS, for electroplated nickel silver.
The BBB is the maker, Barker Brothers, Birmingham:
BTW: This piece doesn’t have a “hallmark.” Only sterling (or gold) would have a hallmark. When it comes to plate, there’s no “hall” involved, i.e., no guild of silversmiths.
Whao…“turn it side ways.” Thank you. Now I know what I didn’t know.
Thanks so much for your quick and great reply!
I still struggle with gothic lettering, but once you’ve seen a few of those late 19th and early 20th Century EPNS marks, you can spot them a mile off, even upside-down. 
Jeff - Curious if there was an industry transition in the marking of plated silver to the use of EPNS in place of the A, A1, B classification and did it signify a change in actual silver content??
Not AFAIK. It’s all electroplated. The plating is almost pure silver, in any event. The A, A1, etc. “classification” is just the maker’s claim about how thick the plating is. There is no standard, no regulation.
They could just as easily have labeled their pieces, “Super Plated,” or “Fantastic Plating.” Truth be told, I’ve never seen anything less than A or A1 - I don’t imagine the makers ever wanted to proclaim, loudly, that they were using really thin plating on something!
I’ve seen a YouTuber recover ~5% on plated which is way above what I had heard commonly stated, so curious if it changed as the tech got more sophisticated and they got away with less.
EPNS seem ubiquitous on modern stuff and I haven’t seen as much A, A1 type etc. But then I am not exposed to a whole lot.
“Old Sheffield Plate,” which predates electroplating, was quite a bit thicker. It was more of a mechanical process, using pressure and heat to fuse a layer of silver to the copper base. Electroplating was invented in about 1840, and was much more efficient, requiring far less pure silver to achieve a good, solid layer of plating. The resulting layer of silver is almost microscopic. As a result, the older technique vanished pretty quickly. Making teapots was a business, after all, not a roving commission to do good. 