I just bought this as an Old Sheffield Plate item… can anyone confirm if this really is the case?
And there’s an old sticker on the underside that I can’t quite decipher, there’s the word ‘Old’ and ‘c1830 £185’… but what do you think is the second and third words… they don’t look like ‘Sheffield Plate’… which is what I’d expected to see?
Cheers, Simon
Old Sheffield Coaster.
Old Sheffield Plate Wine Coaster - Christopher Buck Antiques
Antique English Sheffield Silverplate Grape Motif Wine Coaster | eBay
Thank you, Bartholomew! Any thoughts on the label text… is there other wording for Sheffield Plate??
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U welcome, Simon!
www.925-1000.com - Search
Here’s a useful link to a Vancouver dealer’s comments on the difference between fusion plate — which is other and more accurate wording for Sheffield Plate and Electroplate
Justin’s dad, Michael had the same view from his bedroom window I did as a child: the Wrekin. He was looking at the hill from the Shrewsbury side, I from nearer the Big Smoke, Iron Bridge country.
Went back there recently. There was something decidedly odd, well different about the view. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but something. It finally dawned. In the 21st century it was actually possible to see the Wrekin. Back in the day with a good inversion it was obscured completely. As a child I always knew it was about to disappear as the maids rushed out to collect the still damp sheets and pillow cases from the orchard clothes lines. By listening carefully I collected a number of useful phrases from them on the subject of environmental pollution and exactly what would best fit where and how mechanically they felt inclined to achieve it.
Anyway, Justin’s got a reference to rather a useful text on the entire subject of metal fusion and catalytic conversion. Like the maids on the subject of pollution, the authors think its practical application is vested in the midlands of England. I am prepared to concede the Black Country’s important role, but the process is as old as smithing itself and may go back to prehistoric times.
Fused metals, precious and base have been discovered i by archeologists in grave recoveries in the southern US. That is of interest to those of us 800 to a thousand miles to the north of the sites as the precious metal came from Canada, specifically what is now the Cobalt Mines just north of Toronto.
In a day and age where, Americans want to tax themselves on metals we sell them to make their automobiles and washing machines (perhaps they too heard the 'plaints of the washer-women) it is curious to note we have been selling Americans household and decorative metal items for about 2,500 years shipping down the rivers to the central plains.
Of course they weren’t called Americans then and we weren’t Canadians. And the entire continent, which the Roman Catholics rather self-servingly dubbed terra nullius, was governed and managed like a series of interlocking farms and orchards. This practice on the west coast traceable back about 13,000 years as I quickly discovered when I dug a swimming pool for a Vancouver Island coast home and ran straight into a village site of about that date.
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The linked article is a very nice summation, something to be bookmarked.
For me, the most interesting statement was this one: “…OSP was usually not marked at all but occasionally you will find a maker’s mark.” That’s a good one to remember. If it’s got some gaudy pseudo-hallmark frippery on the bottom, it ain’t OSP, it’s EPNS! 
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Thank you for the most interesting insights and the linked article… much appreciated!
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