Articles made of copper coated with silver by fusion.
The technique was discovered с 1742 by the Sheffield (Yorkshire, Eng.) cutler electroplating in 1840, production of Sheffield plate declined; by the 1870s it had all but disappeared. Admired for its soft, glowing gray lustre, Sheffield-plate ware soon came to be prized and collected.
Sheffield plate chamber candlestick by Matthew Boulton, c. 1820; in the Sheffield City ...
By courtesy of Sheffield City Museum; Mottershaw Photography