EPNS Silver Cutlery

Yes I have four silver serving dishes, with lids and removable handles on so you can use the tops as dishes too. Two came from my maternal grandmother and two from the paternal one. They are beautiful but my daughter in law doesn’t want them. My sister and I were given the task of cleaning them before Christmas, particularly if they had had sprouts in them.

It was our job as children to clean the silver most weeks when we were growing up, so I am quite averse to doing it now.

I don't think most younger people have the time or the inclination these days to spend hours lovingly polishing old silver, sadly.

Could you send it to an auction house grannysue? You may get more than you would on Ebay; it could be worth a try.

When we went to a friend's for dinner not long ago, she served coffee in a beautiful old silver coffee pot which I admired, thinking it was a family heirloom.

She said it had cost her £8 from the charity shop.

If you sent it to an auction house you would be lucky to get fifty or sixty pounds for it. A 64 piece canteen in mint condition sold at our auction house recently for £35. Shocking really. Mine rarely sees the light of day and my two think it is more trouble than it’s worth if you can’t stick it in the dishwasher!

I too have an antique set of silver plate cutlery in sets of 12.
I never use it now, too much bother to clean and it’s so heavy to use.
It lies in a drawer and can stay there. It won’t be my problem when I pop my cloggs!

I have my MiLs silver plated coffee set but we don’t even have it out. I also rescued her dinner service which is very pretty blue and white. I suggested using it one Christmas Day but it was vetoed on the grounds that it can’t be put in the dishwasher.

I put all my silver and silver plate cutlery and serving dishs in the dishwasher, likewise my Wedgwood dinner service and even a Victorian tea set.

I have been doing this since the mid 1980s when I first got a dishwasher. Admittedly, with the Victorian tea service I did put one cracked cup in a load first to check it would survive undamaged - it did.
Admittedly i do not use it much, but currently everything is out on the already laid Christmas dining table and all will be in use for the next qo days

qo(?) should be 10.

Many years ago I sold a canteen of silver fish knives and forks with mother of pearl handles and got £182 for it. It was at one of those auctions which occasionally visit different towns but I'm going back a bit---late 80's.

I still have a variety of silver cutlery, sugar tongs shaped like claws, mustard spoons, icing sugar spoons,apostle spoons.

Family will have a field day or curse, one of these days.

I have a silver plated canteen which was bought second hand by my parents for our wedding present 29 years ago. I’ll be using it tomorrow. To be honest I generally stick it in the dishwasher and have done all my married life to no ill effect. I clean it properly about once a year and use it about once a month.

Nobody wants it and I sold mine and ma-in -laws , and grandma-in-laws at a gold/ silver exchange office. 10 Euros a kilo. We had 4 kilos of the stuff and were happy to get 40 Euros.

I have enough stainless steel cutlery- good, high quality which I love.

forgotten my apostrophe commas (in-law's)

Sadly I don't think EPNS cutlery is collectible or valuable nowadays. Just shop around and get what you can for it. I am in the same boat along with others of the same age, our children are not interested in fine china or silver cutlery. I have one daughter who is heavily into antiques so she will get mine sooner rather than later.
I sent some stuff to the auction rooms once and they rang me to say the auction would be delayed. They had been burgled and a lot of things taken. My stuff was left behind - even the burglars didn't want it.

EPNS is virtually valueless - except - when we took our stall to Peterborough Antiques Fair last Autumn, there was a stall devoted to silverplate, which we haven't seen there before, suggesting it might be starting to make a come back. The professional dealers are very savvy, and these were professionals, so may have been selling something entirely different last Easter.

Silver cutlery etc sells for the price of silver scrap, unless the silversmith is one of the top ones. Finding a Paul Storr stamp on your silver would fund a very comfortable retirement

I console myself with the thought that most of my prized possessions will end up in a charity shop if I don't find someone to give them to, and then I hope someone who likes them will buy them, supporting a good cause, and love them.

EllanVannin I have, and used to use, a pair of hallmarked silver Victorian grape scissors. My phillistine children have always thought this an item of such ludicrous pomposity, it became a family joke, until recently when DD said she was “warming to them”. One down, several dozen useless bits of silver to go!

Like these?
I think they are rather beautiful, but fear they need a polish.
What is the objection?

I think they could be very useful - grapes are difficult to cut and small children should never be given whole ones.

I have gave up trying to work out why my children thought things like napkin rings and grape scissors were objects of amusement, but suffice it to say that when DD asked this year if she could borrow my napkin rings, I had a little “lions nil, Christians one” moment. Here are my grape scissors and they, too, need a clean!

Napkin rings - that’s another story.