How can you tell silver from pewter?

Answer 1

silver will most likely have the symbol 925 imprinted on it somewhere. as for telling if something is pewter or not, I'm still trying to work that out.

"Pewter contains lead and will leave a pencil-like mark when drawn across a piece of paper."

Actually, pewter can (and used to, exclusively) contain lead along with other metals but modern alloys contain tin (92%-95%), copper(up to 2.5%) and subtitute ANTIMONY (less than 2%) for LEAD. There are standards about the amount of antimony added to the alloy in order that the finished pewter product is food-safe. Try this link for further information: http://www.pewtersociety.org/care.HTML

The difference between SILVER and PEWTER should be readily apparent as pewter is so much softer than silver. Pewter can be carved with a sharp tool with relative ease: silver can not. Even if it doesn't contain lead pewter will still leave a mark when scratched on a hard surface (but so will silver...just a mark of a different gray).