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Have any of you tried melting silver plated pewter, or anything of the like that is silver plated? I tried today and I was able to recover zinc and also what appears to be lead(my conclusion is that I can use the melted piece of lead as a giant pencil).


Is melting silver plated dishes/fork even worth the recovery efforts?

The best way to recover precious metals from most items that are electroplated is to reverse-plate it. With silverplate, I don't think anyone has figured out a way to do this and make a profit. There are many other better sources of silver out there anyway.

Silverplated items are usually one of the following base metals, in order of most frequent:

1) Brass

2) Nickel silver, aka NS or german silver - low nickel alloys that are generally bought and sold as mixed brass at scrap yards

3) Copper - bought and sold as #2 at scrap yards

4) Pewter (most valuable of the five, but much smaller market)

5) Steel

If your piece melted easily at low temperature, such as with a propane torch, it was probably pewter. I don't think I've seen silverplated lead before.