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 Replies: 15 / Views: 1,920 |
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Valued Member
United States
376 Posts |
So I know many of you might disagree, but I have had tremendous luck with ebay. Within the past month I have had a very big interest in buying junk sterling and melting them to bars or ingots for my own pleasure. It's extremely fun. And not as dangerous as most think. Common sense is a must  Anyways, I recently made a purchase for a 2.4 oz Sterling Silver serving fork. It was labeled sterling silver, I even messaged him asking if it was solid sterling and he replied yes. I got it in the mail yesterday. It was clearly marked sterling on the back. Not EP, for electroplate, or anything like that. So I continued to tear it down and melt it. I couldn't tell too much by looking inside the breaks to see, but when I started melting. I could clearly see it was plated. The silver plate was swirling around on top of what looked to me to be nickel, considering it was a fork from late 1800  . And it simply would not melt with my Oxy Map Torch like silver does. Anyways, I thought anything plated silver needed to have the EP mark, or a symbol with a number stating the amount of plate in grams or something. The fork clearly had STERLING stamped thats it. Could this have been altered? Or is this normal? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3345 Posts |
He could have stamped sterling on it
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Valued Member
 United States
376 Posts |
That's what I thought originally. But it looked legit. So I'm wondering if maybe people were counterfeiting back in the 1800's? lol. I dont know. Regardless I got my full purchase price back so. I'm not worried about it. I just don't want it to happen again.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4008 Posts |
I'm not sure that there even is anything called "junk Sterling". Sterling is not silver plated. It is solid 92.5% silver. Very often, it is marked "925" on it somewhere. The fork that you got is clearly not sterling. A quick and dirty test is to touch it with a magnet. Both iron and nickel are magnetic and a magnet will stick to them. Silver, even Sterling silver, is not magnetic and will not stick to a magnet. It would be a good idea to test any future items that you want to melt down with a magnet BEFORE melting them. You might be able to get a refund if the item really is not silver. There is no way to know whether or not the guy you bought this from knows that it is or is not sterling. He may / may not have been fooled too. OK, lesson learned. Caveat Emptor and all that.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1119 Posts |
Colu41- You got your full purchase price back? what did you return to the seller? a half melted spoon? or did you offer some kind of recompense? or just nothing?
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Valued Member
United States
493 Posts |
Yeah, lol, how do you get your money back? I just filed my first ebay complaint through the resolution center, and that's after cooling down and waiting two weeks for the seller to email me back, which they never did, now I have to wait again, etc., etc. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1454 Posts |
Quote:
Colu41- You got your full purchase price back? what did you return to the seller? a half melted spoon? or did you offer some kind of recompense? or just nothing? I was wondering the same thing, Steele. I assumed he simply wrote it off. I'm not sure he has much legal recourse via ebay buyer protection at this point. The product is simply gone, or at least in a radically different form than what it was in when the seller mailed it out. About six months ago, I bought two 3 oz bars from an ebay seller. Unfortunately, The package arrived a bar short and the seller wouldn't admit a mistake had been made. ebay eventually forced the seller to return half my money. Perhaps my story is somewhat analogous to yours but the price of one silver fork might not be worth all the effort I put forth, meaning a trip to the police station, among other things, to get back my $100+ investment. |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
2624 Posts |
A stamp saying Sterling means nothing... an assay mark means everything.
It seems unbelievable that hallmarking is not regulation in every country as it is one of the best customer protection idea's ever.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4008 Posts |
Quote:
A stamp saying Sterling means nothing... an assay mark means everything. In the case of deliberate fraud, NO mark means a thing. Any counterfeiter out there who can stamp something onto an object to make it look authentic will do so... including assay marks. It is really unfortunate that there is so much of this going on these days. Buyers need to be very careful about what they buy and from whom they buy. |
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Valued Member
United States
376 Posts |
Yes I did get my full purchase price back immediately the next morning! I did not expect that. The spoon is STILL sitting in my garage in a twine of burnt metal. When I had to escalate the case to ebay Customer Service, I told them that since I cannot return the item as it was sent out, I would be willing to take half the purchase price. But I got an email saying I just received a courtesy refund from ebay. I will definitely be ordering some acid to test these myself before tearing them apart next time.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4008 Posts |
Quote:
I will definitely be ordering some acid to test these myself before tearing them apart next time. Just be aware that acid tests generally just test the surface, so may not be able to tell heavy silver plate from solid silver. |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
What were the complete markings on it, or was STERLING the only visible marking? I think that with all of the books and websites out there available to look up makers' marks and assay marks there's no reason to blame the seller. Did the seller say it was sterling? - because that's a different story.
Edited by Libertad
08/04/2012 8:18 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4008 Posts |
Quote:
Did the seller say it was sterling? - because that's a different story. It could be. Or, he could simply have a lot of this kind of stuff to sell, didn't check this particular item out all that closely, and thought that it was sterling silver. No way to tell for sure but it is good that the price was refunded. It is a little odd that a refund was made with no demand for the return of the item, though. |
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Valued Member
United States
425 Posts |
Quote: "It is a little odd that a refund was made with no demand for the return of the item, though."
More than a little odd if you ask me! My bet is that the seller had a pretty good idea that the item was not real "Sterling' but hoped the buyer would never check. Lets face it, if he is selling an item stating that it is marked "Sterling", he is not being untruthful...... just dishonest. This may be why he was willing to make a refund w/o seeing the item was not really sterling silver for himself.
In 1743 the process of Sheffield plating was invented and this started a whole new trend. Now folks that could not afford real silverware could have what looks like real silverware at a fraction of the cost....... and yes they would often be stamped with "Sterling" or "Silver", etc.... to make the deception complete.
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Valued Member
United States
425 Posts |
Quote: "It is a little odd that a refund was made with no demand for the return of the item, though."
More than a little odd if you ask me! My bet is that the seller had a pretty good idea that the item was not real "Sterling' but hoped the buyer would never check. Lets face it, if he is selling an item stating that it is marked "Sterling", he is not being untruthful...... just dishonest. This may be why he was willing to make a refund w/o seeing the item was not really sterling silver for himself.
In 1743 the process of Sheffield plating was invented and this started a whole new trend. Now folks that could not afford real silverware could have what looks like real silverware at a fraction of the cost....... and yes they would often be stamped with "Sterling" or "Silver", etc.... to make the deception complete.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1454 Posts |
odentheviking,
Or they simply wanted to try and avoid negative feedback on what amounted to a fairly low profit item. I would have done the same for the buyer.
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Replies: 15 / Views: 1,920 |
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Posted 07/29/2012 3:33 pm
