The Atlas · Silver fineness mark
925 means sterling silver: 925 parts silver in every thousand, 92.5% silver, with the remainder usually copper. It is a real precious metal mark and it is also the most common mark in any estate box, which is why it settles the metal and almost nothing about the value.
What does 925 mean on a ring? — answered here in full, free, with nothing asked of you.
Sterling is the oldest continuously used precious metal standard in the English-speaking world, and the numeral 925 is its modern shorthand. Silver at spot is worth a small fraction of gold by weight, so a heavy sterling bangle that feels substantial in the hand is usually worth tens of dollars as metal, not hundreds. Families discover this at the worst possible moment, and it is the most common reason a box that looks full turns out to be light.
The value in sterling almost never lives in the metal. It lives in four things, in descending order of how often they matter: a named maker or house, struck as a punch beside the 925; a recognisable design period, particularly Scandinavian mid-century, Arts and Crafts, and Georg Jensen's workshop; Native American work with a hallmarked artist's stamp, where the maker's name can multiply the price several times over; and Mexican silver of the Taxco period, which carries eagle numbers or a spread-eagle punch. Any punch that is not the number is the punch to photograph.
The counterfeit problem on 925 is real but crude. Modern base-metal jewellery is stamped 925 in volume, and the tell is usually visible: a stamp that is sharp-edged and shallow rather than pressed into displaced metal, a green or grey tarnish rather than silver's warm black, and a suspiciously light weight. None of those three is conclusive from a photograph, and a single drop of silver test acid from a hardware store settles it in seconds.
The stamp is present and legible: this metal is declared sterling silver, 925 parts per thousand.
Twentieth century or later manufacture, most likely made for export or for the American market. A second punch beside the number — initials, a symbol, an eagle with a number, a country name — is what decides whether the piece is worth its metal or many times its metal.
Whether the stamp is truthful. A base-metal piece stamped 925 photographs identically to a genuine one, and only weight against volume, a silver acid test, or a jeweller's scratch test separates them.
Next step
Photograph every punch that is not the number 925, at the closest distance the phone will hold focus. A maker's mark is the difference between a piece worth its weight and a piece worth ten times it, and it is the one fact a photograph can actually prove.
Continental silver at lower fineness — German, Italian, Scandinavian, Eastern European. Real silver, worth proportionally less, and often on much better designed pieces than the sterling beside it.
Electroplated nickel silver, electroplate, and electroplated Britannia metal. No silver content worth recovering; scrap value effectively zero regardless of size.
Names for copper-nickel-zinc alloys containing no silver at all. Alpaca in particular appears on Mexican pieces sitting next to genuine Mexican sterling.
Common on late twentieth century commercial chain. Genuine sterling as a rule, and genuinely worth only its weight.
Free, and nothing asked of you
One mark answers one question. A box answers the real one — which pieces deserve money and expertise, and which nine are costume. Email the photographs to the house inbox: the whole box laid out, then any stamps you can find. We read them and reply by hand.