# Silver plate



## Seamus (Sep 12, 2008)

I have a five gallon bucket of silver plate stuff. Mostly flat ware. Is it worth refining or selling as is.

You can always tell an Irishman,
but you can't tell him much.


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## Harold_V (Sep 13, 2008)

The general attitude is that it is not worth processing. It's difficult to strip with nitric, because the base metal causes the silver to precipitate as fast as it's dissolved. It is also non-selective, so base metals get dissolved along with the silver. With the price of nitric where it is, you're far better served to lose the idea. 

Some claim they can strip it by other means. Might not hurt to do a search on the subject and get an idea of the success (or lack thereof) others have achieved. There has been recent conversation about stripping with copper sulfate. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but it appears it has been working with at least limited success. 

Personally----unless I could strip it cleanly, I'd consider it a waste of time. There's not much value there. You might be just as well served to sell the material as scrap base metal. 

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone that has had success by any means in stripping silver plated items.

Harold


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## Seamus (Sep 13, 2008)

That was basically what I thought of the project. Thank you Harold


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