EVER HEAR OF SHEFFIELD SILVER PLATE? SHEFFIELD SILVER
PLATE?
Sheffield silver plate was a process to copy sterling silver
table ware. The finished silver plated tableware cost about
half as much as the real item. Sheffield silver plate came
about in 1800 and was not an electroplating process. In fact
our industry did not get started until 1840.
Sheffield plate was just what it says. Copper sheets were
overlaid with the silver sheets and rolled together. The
tableware items were the formed from these sheets. Sheffield
plate tableware is quite a rare find today and can be
distinguished from silver electroplated tableware by close
observation of the high current density areas ( i.e. Edges
and protrusions) copper will show in these areas against
heavy deposits in the low current density areas. During the
forming process the edges were stretched and tended to have
the lease amount of silver. Copper showed up in these areas
even at the factory. Silver salts were rubbed over the
exposed copper edge to cover the flaw.
EVER WONDER HOW THE COMMERCIAL ELECTROPLATING BUSINESS
GOT STARTED?
NO, it wasn’t the discovery of copper electrotyping by
Jacoby, in Russia and Spenser in England. Nor was it
Faraday, Jordan, or a host of others who all made
contributions to the electrodeposition process.
The success of the electrotype process induced many persons
to turn their attention to the deposition of gold and silver
by means of the direct current. Up to the year 1840, no
really successful solution was available.
In that year, Mr. John Wright a surgeon in Birmingham,
England making experiments in electrodeposition, read a
passage in "Scheel’s Chemical Essays" in which he found that
cyanides of gold, silver and copper were soluble in an
excess of cyanide of potassium. He then formed a solution by
dissolving chloride of silver in a solution of ferrocyanide
of Potassium and obtained by electrolysis a firm deposit of
silver. A few weeks after he used potassium cyanide instead
of the ferrocyanide. For his discovery he was paid one
schilling for every ounce of silver deposited. This single
event, the employment of alkaline cyanides formed the basic
of the now great art of electroplating. ( Electroplating and
Electrorefining (Watt & Philip 1911)
DO YOU KNOW WHAT WAS THE FIRST ELECTROPLATING BRIGHTERNER
AND HOW IT WAS DISCOVERED?
NO, it wasn’t glue, postum, tobacco or dead rodents. We’ll
talk about those at another time.
Mr. W Milward of Birmingham, England about 1843, was using
bisulphite of carbon in waxing moulds with a film of
phophorus. Contaminating his silver bath with bisulphite of
carbon, he noticed when he plated spoons and forks, they
were coming out bright. He kept the secret to himself for
some time but as it became known he patented the process in
1847.
