Hallmark help

[Bavo]

Hi

I need help, I’ve just started stacking silver and came across these knifes whilst shopping but for the life of me I just don’t get hallmarks.

I don’t know why, so I purchased them and hoped that someone might be able to help identify if they are silver or not.

Thanks in advance.

[BackyardBullion]

These are not hallmarks, I suspect they are just the silver plate markings that are all so common to make items seem hallmarked but are actually not.

[sixgun]

The look of the metal suggests to me it is plate and not solid silver.

The crown on silver was the Sheffield Assay Office mark up to 1974 and then it switched to the rose. This piece bears a crown but as well as not looking like solid silver to me it doesn't bear assay office hallmarks. Silver plate was made to look like silver and so would have pseudo-silver marks. The crown was prohibited as a plate mark as it was the Sheffield Assay Office mark but platers tended to ignore this during the Victorian era after which the authorities clamped down on the practice.
So the crown is often a mark of Victorian silver plate. 
The crown was used by Sheffield manufacturers but also Birmingham. The last mark on the piece is an S. This would usually stand for Son or Sheffield - and as there is no & preceding the S, my guess is this is Victorian Sheffield silver plate. The first two letters - the second one is a W - the first one - I'm not sure, it could be a B. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by sixgun