2 more items

[aj_houser]

Sorry, hope I do not seem to be imposing on anyone on here, I am very new at all of this and have literally an entire 2 car garage packed full silver and brass antiques to work through.  I just grabbed a few small items to see if anything had more value than as scrap.  THe gentleman I am helping with this is a scrapper that has set this stuff aside over the past few years.  Any how, first item is a small solid silver jewelry trinket box....I think.  It appears to be Victorian, but once again, you guys will know better than I.  The second item is a lighter, I thin they call them desk lighters.  Once again, my guess is turn of the century, maybe older maybe newer.  I also believe this to be a silver item. I do really appreciate the help.  Maybe I can convince my wife I am not spinning my wheels doing this.

[talesofthesevenseas]

We will need to see any hallmarks (tiny little letters, words and symbols) on the items, usually on the bottom, to tell what they are. Essentially, anything made of silver would at least say "sterling" or "SS" or would have hallmarks that can give you all kinds of information about it such as where it was made, when and by whom.

[aj_houser]

I wish I could find hallmarks, but on these 2 items I find nothing.

[luxetveritas]

I suggest you get some nitric acid. That will take the guesswork out of telling whether or not something is indeed silver. Most silver pieces you find that are antique will have often have a marginally higher value than just scrap.

[fancypants]

Welcome to the forum , aj_houser .

When checking out silver , also look for 3 numerals together - 800 , 825 , 900, 925 etc . , which designate the purity of the silver in an item (or are @ least marked that way) ...... pure silver=1000 .

Alot , although not all , silver items do not use ferrous metals in them .... you can use a magnet to sorta weed out 'suspect' items .

Hope you find some treasures during this big-garage hunt !

[luxetveritas]

Good tips, Fancypants. A magnet would be an extremely useful tool when sorting through large piles of metal objects .