**I just got this item last night, as a birthday gift and it is made in Steffield England hand chased with a tint of blue **
If the only marks are the ones on the bottom then there’s not much to tell. Of course it cannot be silver unless there is a hallmark or the word sterling. Electroplate is the most likely.
Phil
And I should have pointed out that it’s Sheffield, not Steffield.
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I looked up a little and they created a silver /copper mix from 1700-1800. It’s a sugar shaker.
Your sugar caster is not made from a silver/copper mix. It is copper with a microscopically thin layer of pure silver electrodeposited on the surface. That is what is meant by “silver on copper”.
Mixes of silver and copper together with other metals, depending on the proportion of silver in the mix, are what we know as “solid silver”. For example sterling contains 925 parts per 1000 of pure silver with the other 25 parts being copper and other metals. This alloying done to give a hard metal as pure silver is too soft for normal purposes.
The electroplating process was invented in the 19th century but your caster dates from the 20th century.
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