Ebay buckle: not silver

[OC Richard]

It's common for sellers on Ebay to state or suggest that an item is Silver (that is, Sterling Silver) when it is not.

This lovely buckle is a case in point.

It was almost certainly made in the c1900-c1950 period when Highland buckles were usually cast from solid German Silver.

German Silver has zero Silver content, but is an alloy of nickel, zinc, and copper.

It's beautiful stuff, when polished looking quite like Silver.

Sometimes these solid German Silver buckles were silverplated.

Whether silverplated or not, Ebay sellers often mistake them for Silver.

In any case it's a lovely buckle and IMHO far nicer looking that the current offerings.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/12317643019...m=123176430193

BTW that pattern of cast thistle-motif Highland accessories has been around since the late 19th century and still is in production. At some point, as best I can tell sometime in the 1950-1960 period, they began casting them from brass and nickel plating them. Nowadays they're chrome plated which IMHO is cheap-looking.

Here are three buckles of that old thistle pattern I have, two vintage solid German Silver (one portrait, one landscape) and one modern chrome-plated



This thistle pattern was made in dirk belt buckles, crossbelt fittings, plaid brooches, sporran hardware, dirks, shoe buckles, etc.

Here are two sets of crossbelt hardware, modern chrome-plated and vintage solid German Silver

[MacCathmhaoil]

I have one as well, silver plate over German silver, I'm in the process of having a casting made in sterling silver. The buckle fits a 2 3/4" belt rather than the usual 2 1/4"-2 1/2" wide belt more commonly found today.

[Blupiper]

Richard:

I'm going to make you my eBay agent. You always have eyes out for interesting items and a solid wealth of facts to support your advice. Your pics and attached info make it worth the read every time.


JMB

[OC Richard]

Thanks!

I've been buying and wearing vintage Highland Dress for 40 years now, one sees many things over the years and gets a sense of things.

There's really no substitute for having the things in your own hands.

About the belt widths, the wider belts have always been standard in Highland Dress, worn in civilian and military Highland costume throughout the 19th century, both with dirk belts and crossbelts.

Seems to me that the narrower belts were introduced in the early 20th century for wear with some of the new Evening Dress jackets invented at that time, and have always been civilian-specific. Military and civilian pipers continue to wear the wide belts to this day.