The properties of Ni and Ag mono- and multilayers adsorbed on a W(110) surface precovered with a saturated layer of chemisorbed benzene were investigated. It could be shown that benzene is chemisorbed flat on W(110) and that Ni and Ag deposits on this surface at 90 K grow layer by layer. Work function, electron loss, and photoelectron spectroscopic measurements indicate that Ni layers do not screen out the W-benzene dipole layer potential, do not show collective excitations, and seem to lack s-band density of states near the Fermi level. By contrast Ag monolayers show a work function close to that of polycrystalline Ag, a plasmon loss, and a density of states corresponding to the Ag 5s-band. These results support the conclusions reached previously that transition or near transition metals in which a full d- and an empty s-band can exist tend to be nonmetallic because the s-band is pushed up in energy relative to the d-band and thus can be empty. For metals in which the s-band is necessarily partially filled metallicity results even for monolayers.