Silverplated utensils at thrift stores: worth accumulating?

[Anonymous]

At thrift stores I see loads and loads of silverplated forks and spoons and knives. Are these worth purchasing for their silver?

 

[goldsilverpro]

Somewhere, I have a list of the various qualities of plated silverware. I'll try to find it. If I remember right, the silver runs from about 1 to 7 tr oz, of silver, per gross (144 pieces) of spoons or forks.

 

[goldsilverpro]

Here's the list - for teaspoons only. These specs are supposedly well established in the industry. I don't know whether they are stamped, as such, or not. I also don't know the numbers for other types of pieces.

Half plate - 1 tr oz Ag/ gross (144 pieces) of teaspoons
Standard plate - 2 tr oz/gross
Double plate - 4 tr oz/gross
Triple plate - 6 tr oz/gross
Quadruple plate - 8 tr oz/gross
Federal specification - 9 tr oz/gross

The silver thicknesses, on these, range from .000150" to .001250". The Fed. spec. ones figure out to 1 tr oz/sq.ft. of surface area.

Here are similar plating standards for plated hotel holloware. A dwt. (pennyweight) is 1.555 grams. There are 20 dwts in a tr oz.

Light plate - 2 dwt/sq ft
Medium plate - 5 dwt/sq ft
Heavy hotel plate - 10 dwt/sq ft
Extra heavy hotel plate - 15 dwt/sq ft
Federal specification plate - 20 dwt/sq ft

 

[donald236]

hi guys this sounds like to me that it is worth refining but i have a question . the silverware that you guys are refering to do they have a stamp of some sort or what would you look for as far as high quilty ? i hope this question is right i'm not very smart when it comes down to being specific about things.