George IV Old Sheffield Plate plateau

The name Old Sheffield Plate can only properly be attributed to one particular kind of silver plate. Old Sheffield Plate was made in a fusion process in the late 18th and early 19th century, before the invention of electroplating that we are familiar with today.

With the rise of the merchant class in 18th century Britain, the demand for an affordable substitute for silver increased. In the 1740s, cutler Thomas Boulsover invented the first reliable and economic method of silver plating where copper and sterling silver were fused together and then rolled out into a sheet and used to create pieces using the same techniques that were used with sterling silver. Given that Old Sheffield Plate was made as a substitute for sterling silver, the shapes and styles were almost identical to the sterling pieces of the same period.