Picked up a set of John George Graves cutlery yesterday all with the same hallmark, looked around online for meaning of CS, does this mean sterling silver or plated? Thank you in advance
It’s definitely not silver as it doesn’t have a hallmark (this mark is a manufacturer’s mark, not a hallmark, which could only be applied by the assay office after testing for silver). It may not even be electroplated. Many manufacturers used their own proprietary base alloy mixtures, sometimes calling it nickel silver. In this case I suspect CS stands for Graves’s own alloy name, whatever that might have been.
Phil
Hi Phil thanks for explaining really helpful.