Much of the charm of old plate was in its beauty of form and design, for the work attracted the best of English artisans. It would appear, too, that they were fairly well paid for their labor, as Pepys, in his “Diary,” refers to a present made him of a pair of flagons which cost £100. “They are said to be worth five shillings, some say ten shillings, an ounce for the fashion.”
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The first notable improvement over the Sheffield work came toward the middle of the nineteenth century, when electro-silver plating was first practiced and, in 1847, commercially perfected, by Rogers Brothers of Hartford, Conn.
The marvelous force of electricity was brought to bear on the making of silver-plated knives, forks, spoons, etc., as well as hollow-ware articles, such as coffee and tea pots, water pitchers, sugar bowls and platters. Instead of these articles being made of sheets of rolled copper and silver, a silver plate of any desired thickness is applied to the base metal by electricity.
This quick and less expensive method of manufacture rendered silver plate available to all classes, and the Sheffield plate was quickly superseded, the old method of manufacture becoming obsolete.
While the process of manufacture was cheapened, the newer craftsmen wisely held to the art standards of the old masters. With the new process came the perfection of modern construction, and the cost is so much less than in the old days that a perfect table service of authentic design, of quality beyond question and guaranteed in every respect, is within the reach of any well-to-do family. Many of the old family pieces of Sheffield have found their way into the melting pot in exchange for the modern electro-plated silverware.
The making of silver-plated flatware is an interesting process and one that requires a great amount of skill and care. The finished teaspoon, as it lies in the show-case or chest, is the result of over thirty distinct operations, while a plain silver-plated steel knife has passed through thirty-six stages in its evolution from the bit of steel rod, in which shape it begins its journey. Some of the more important steps in the making of a spoon are briefly described below:
The Blank.
The metal underlying the silver plate of the best plated teaspoons is of nickel silver, a trade name for a metal composed of nickel, copper and zinc. This metal is procured in sheet form of varying lengths. From this sheet is cut a blank, which bears little resemblance to a spoon, being about half the length of the finished article and very much wider.