Archaeology with cyanide

I was watching Antiques Road Trip, where one of the experts solemnly told us that the way you make silver plate is to squash thin sheets of silver either side of copper. That's how they first did it (it says here) before they had a better idea.

 Here's a once-upon-a-time silver plated spoon we dug up in the garden. The maker's mark is Thomas Wilkinson of Birmingham. The modern process was developed by several different people around the same time, but Birmingham is where they started electroplating silver industrially, using nice, friendly substances like cyanide.  Wilkinson was one of the pioneers at the Pelican Works. Here's how you can do it at home.

It must have been a very nice spoon, once.