Real Silverware Vs. Stainless Flatware

Brief History

• Sterling silver didn't become popular for eating utensils and dishes until the mid-1700s, when it was used by the aristocrats for everything from cutlery to sugar bowls. By the middle of the 1860s, the more affordable silver-plated flatware became popular, as more people could afford the look of silver at the dinner table. Stainless steel came later, as knives were produced in Sheffield, England around 1913. However, it would take a decade for the metal to be extended to plates and flatware. By the mid-1950s, larger silversmiths started to trade in their silver-plated product lines for the more popular stainless flatware.

Silverware

• Silver is a soft metal that is often combined with another metal to create flatware. Sterling, a silver alloy, is created by mixing 92.5 percent silver with 7.5 percent of another metal. Usually the metal of choice is copper, but germanium and zinc can also be used. The cheaper silver-plated silverware is manufactured by bonding a shiny silver finish to copper and nickel metals in a process called electroplating.

  New silverware is shiny, but this finish gives way to a satiny luster, as small scratches and dings wear down the surface's gleam with use and age---this effect is usually desirable, according to Harry L. Rinker's book "Silverware of the 20th Century: The Top 250 Patterns."

Stainless Steel

• A steel alloy, stainless steel mixes steel with 18 percent chromium and 10 percent nickel to create a flatware metal that is shiny silver finish. Also referred to as 18/10 stainless steel, the addition of the two metals helps the steel not to discolor, rust or corrode. Stainless steel flatware has a wide variety of quality and patterns from cheap jagged cutlery to costly high-end flatware that can be available with special finishes.

Maintenance

• The drawback to sterling silver is that it has to be polished occasionally to remove tarnish, especially if the metal has come in contact with eggs or it hasn't been dried sufficiently when washed. Though silver-plated silverware can have the luster of sterling silver, the silver coating can wear off with time, exposing the cheaper metal underneath.

  Maintaining stainless steel is easier that silverware, as the metal does not tarnish and is resistant to many types of damage. The steel alloy never requires polishing, but it also never acquires the desirable soft sheen with age, like the more prized silverware.