Turn a French silver piece over and look for a goddess in a helmet. If you find her, it is solid silver. If the maker's mark sits in a square instead of a diamond, it is silver plate. Those two details settle most questions at a brocante table. Here is how to read the rest.
1. The Minerva head: solid French silver
Since 10 May 1838, French solid silver has been stamped with the profile of Minerva, the Roman goddess, wearing a helmet. It is a tiny mark, often no bigger than a grain of rice, so bring a loupe.
- Minerva with a 1, in an eight-sided frame: first standard, 950 parts silver in 1,000.
- Minerva with a 2, in a rounded frame: second standard, 800 parts in 1,000.
Most French flatware and table silver from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries carries the Minerva 1.
2. The maker's mark: diamond or square
Next to the Minerva you will find the maker's mark: initials and a small symbol inside a frame. The shape of that frame is the quickest test there is.
- A lozenge (a diamond shape) means solid silver.
- A square or rectangle means silver plate.
Makers sometimes shared initials, so to identify the workshop you need the whole mark, symbol included.
3. Small pieces: the crab and the boar
A Minerva will not fit on a ring, a thimble or a tiny pill box. For small objects France used simpler marks: a boar's head for pieces assayed in Paris and a crab for those assayed in the provinces, both indicating at least 800/1000. Since 1962 the crab has been the general mark for small French silver.
4. Silver plate: squares and numbers
Silver plate is not a lesser thing. Good French plate was made to be used every day, and much of it has lasted a century or more. It is marked differently:
- A square maker's mark, often with a number beside it.
- From around 1860, that number usually means grams of silver used to plate the piece, or a dozen spoons or forks. More grams, thicker plate.
- Since 1983, the official French term is métal argenté, and newer pieces carry a square mark with a I or II for first or second quality.
5. Export marks
Silver made for sale abroad often carries a head of Mercury instead of, or alongside, the usual marks. Its form changed over the decades, so date it against a hallmark chart.
What we do at l'atelier Alba
Every listing in our shop says whether a piece is solid silver or silver plate, and we photograph its marks where they exist. Browse our French antique silver, or write to us with a photo of a mark you cannot place.
Eva, l'atelier Alba, Alba-la-Romaine