Electroplating is a technique by which silver, gold or nickel and other metals can be deposited on to a base metal, using an electric current. It was patented in 1840, and is still the standard method of plating today. The base metal is often nickel silver, an alloy based on copper, nickel and zinc, but containing no silver. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Britannia metal, an alloy similar to pewter, was frequently electroplated too. Electroplated copper was popular around 1900, and even stainless steel cutlery is sometimes electroplated with silver. Other metals besides silver can be deposited by the electroplating process, and chromium plating, which has a silvery colour is also carried out.

Electroplated goods are often marked, and as with unplated nickel silver articles, marks have never been compulsory. The practice of registering marks for silver plated goods at Sheffield Assay office had lapsed in the 1830s, before the commercial introduction of electroplating, although the law requiring registration was not repealed until 1973. The arrangements which from 1875 governed trade mark registration on nickel silver goods also applied to electroplated metal wares made in Sheffield area.