We mention together two books which the collector will find
of very great utility. Both are published by the Sheffield Assay Office. The first is Old Silver Platers and their Marks (4s. 6d. net).—This has to do with what is known as " Sheffield Plate," a ware which consists of silver rolled upon copper. The list, which covers a period of a little over fifty years, contains something less than 150 names. ".Sheffield Plate" has been superseded as a manufacture by other processes, but it has a very considerable value of its own ; a fact all the more noticeable because the peculiar marks—different, of course, from those put on sterling silver articles—were enjoined to prevent the fraudulent sale of " goods made of base metal." The " Plate" is now worth more than the "solid silver" which was meant to be protected. The second book is The Sheffield Assay Office Register (18s. net). It contains " a copy of the Register of the persons concerned in the Silver Wares and of the Marks entered by them from 1773 to 1907." The earlier year is the date of the Act which established the Assay Office. In 1854 non-Sheffield names begin to appear, and in 1907, the last year of record, these are in a small majority, 22 to 19. The list is supplemented very conveniently by an Index of Marks and an Index of Names.
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