Silver Plate Marks: Rogers, Barbour, Wilcox and Webster

Most American silver plate marks that look like separate firms are branches of the same tree. The International Silver Company formed on 19 November 1898 and immediately bought the capital stock of a long list of makers, most of them in Connecticut, and ran them as factories rather than closing them.

The companies taken in included Barbour Silver Company of Hartford, Holmes and Edwards of Bridgeport, Manhattan Silver Plate of Lyons in New York, the Meriden Britannia Company, Meriden Silver Plate, Middletown Plate, Norwich Cutlery, C. Rogers and Brother, the William Rogers Manufacturing Company and Rogers Cutlery of Hartford, Rogers and Brothers of Waterbury, Rogers and Hamilton of Waterbury, Simpson Hall Miller and Simpson Nickel of Wallingford, Derby Silver of Derby, Wilcox Silver Plate of Meriden, Watrous Manufacturing of Wallingford, and Standard Silver of Toronto.

The practical result for anyone reading a mark is that the name on the base often tells you the brand, not the owner. A piece stamped Wilcox Silver Plate Co may have been made years after Wilcox ceased to be an independent company.

Rogers is the most confusing name in American silver plate because several separate firms used it legitimately.

• Rogers Bros goes back to plated spoons made and sold by Asa Rogers Jr and his brothers from 1847.
• 1847 Rogers Bros is the trademark, used from 1862 by the Meriden Britannia Company. The four digits are the origin date of the brand, not the year the object was made. A fork marked 1847 Rogers Bros is almost certainly twentieth century.
• Rogers, Smith & Co was organised in 1857 by William Rogers Sr and George W. Smith, and merged with the Rogers Brothers Mfg Co in 1861. Trade references place its works in Hartford, then New Haven, then Meriden.
• Wm Rogers Mfg Co was organised in 1865 by William Rogers and his elder son.
• Rogers and Hamilton Co was incorporated in 1886 at Waterbury, making plated flatware.

Several of these, including Rogers and Bro, Rogers and Hamilton and Rogers Cutlery, became part of International Silver in 1898, and the 1847 Rogers Bros trademark continued under the new owner. For the separately marked Wm A Rogers brand, see Wm A Rogers.

Three more names account for a large share of the plated hollowware people find at home.

Barbour Silver Company was organised in 1892 at Hartford as a consolidation of I. J. Steane and Co, Barbour Hobson Co and Barbour Bros Co. It joined International Silver in 1898 and was run as Factory A. It moved from Hartford to Meriden after 1 January 1900, into the former Meriden Silver Plate premises on Cross Street. Its sterling work moved to Wallingford in March 1929, and the trademark was retired in 1931, when Factory A was merged with the Wilcox factory. A Barbour mark therefore brackets roughly 1892 to 1931.

Wilcox Silver Plate Co of Meriden was one of the founding acquisitions of 1898 and continued as a brand long afterward, which is why Wilcox pieces span several decades of style.

E.G. Webster began silverplating in New York in 1860 and traded under a run of names, ending as E.G. Webster and Son from 1886. Elizur Webster died in 1900, his son continued the business, and in 1928 it was sold to International Silver, after which production moved to Meriden. The Webster Wilcox mark dates from 1961, and the operation was sold to Oneida in 1981.

Plated marks are wordier than hallmarks because they are advertising as much as identification. Take them in this order.

• The plating words first. EPNS, EP, EPBM, A1, AA, triple plate, quadruple plate, silver soldered, silver on copper. Any of these settles that the piece is plated and that no assay office was involved.
• Then the firm name. A full trading name spelled out is the most useful thing on the base, because it can be dated against the company histories above.
• Then the numbers. Most numbers on plate are pattern, model or capacity numbers, not dates or standards. The 1847 in 1847 Rogers Bros is the clearest example of a number that is neither.
• Then the pictorial device. Crowns, shields, anchors and lions on plate are trade devices that imitate the look of British hallmarks. See crown mark on silver.

Because International Silver kept old brand names alive for decades, a name gives a starting point rather than a date. Style of decoration, the form of the object and the wording of any address usually do more to narrow the period than the name alone.

Plated hollowware has no meaningful metal value, because the silver layer is microns thick over a base that contains none. What it has is design, maker and condition, and those are worth protecting.

Do not use abrasive polish or a silver dip on worn plate. Once the plate is through to the base metal at the high points, polishing removes what is left and the copper or nickel shows as a warm or grey patch. Replating is a normal restoration rather than a fake, but it softens chased detail and a mark.

Photograph the base before any cleaning: the mark is easier to read dark than bright. Photograph it and the app identifies it, and the firm name in your own photograph is what you match against the dates above.