Sheffield plate tea urn
The Neoclassical tea table for the growing middle class: copper with a thin layer of silver fused on.
In the 1740s Thomas Boulsover in Sheffield discovered that silver and copper could be fused and rolled out together. Sheffield plate looked like silver but cost a fraction of it.
In the Neoclassical period candlesticks, trays and tea urns were made in large series. Electroplating from the 1840s killed off the technique, so genuine Sheffield plate almost always dates from before 1850.
Materials: Sheffield plate – copper with silver rolled on both sides
Manufacture: A copper ingot with silver plates was heated until they fused and then rolled out into sheet in Sheffield and Birmingham.
Where the silver has worn away, the reddish copper shows – ‘bleeding’.
Edges that are folded or covered with silver wire so that the copper does not show.
No official silver hallmarks, only the maker’s mark or none at all.