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