Can Someone please help me identify this Tea Caddy? marked.

[IrishLass]

Hi

I am in Ireland and came across this lovely tea caddy, please see the pictures attached.

It is a double sided tea caddy it measures 27cm high by 20cm wide decorated with bamboo and leaf design very unusual no sterling silver marks but marked inside of both compartments with patent number 3837 and another number 883 repeatedly marked on it, it also has the number p6526.

I had a look online at patent numbers which leads me to believe this tea caddy may be American and date to 1870?? I was wondering does anyone know if the 883 stands for the amount of coin silver? I have no idea what the other mark means. Any info would be much appreciated.












Thanks :-)

[dognose]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

As far as the numbers are concerned, the '883' would have been applied to each individual piece to assist the assembly of the item. Each piece would have made separately so that it would fit together snugly, and after the plating process the pieces with the same number would be collected together and assembled .

The 'P6526' would have the factory batch or pattern number.

Trev.

[IrishLass]

Thanks for the reply :-)

That makes sense about the 883 marks.

So it isnt silver? some sort of nickle/silver plate in your opinion?

thanks again :-)

[dognose]

Hi,

I'm sorry, I missed that out in my post.

I'm afraid I see nothing to make me think it is anything but silver plated. It is only on the rarest of occasions that factory made silver items were not marked in some way to indicate the purity of the silver, and even then you would expect the maker to identify themselves.

However, it is an fairly early piece that a lot of work went into, the same amount as it would if it was silver, and obviously with no sigh of wear. It's a fine piece and a good find.

Trev.