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I just purchased a large amount of sterling flatware, and some of it is Towle, Rambler Rose. On most of the pieces, the marks read (lion T) Towle Sterling Pat. 1937 Rambler Rose. But on a few of them, the patent date is not there. Does this indicate a reproduction, a later production, or what? Thanks for any help you can provide. By the way, I am new to the forums, so I hope I posted this in the right area.

Hi Sterlingpicker,

Welcome to the Forum.

Let's see some images of both versions of the marks. The below should help you:

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Trev.

Often at Towle dies that had been in production for a long time would lose some of their marks. If a tiny piece of the pattern date became damaged they would simply stone off that mark and keep using the die. Damage to either the T-lion and the sterling stamp would lead to the die being destroyed, Back then the copyright was only good for 25 years so after it had expired the pattern date being in the die was not as important. On this piece I would say it is a later die that was used as the R would be where the pattern date was on the earlier piece. There is no definitive or systematic rule for dating pieces by the presence or absence of a pattern date. In the 1970's they were still using very old dies of more obscure patterns to fill custom orders and other reasons.

Thank you very much. That was very informative. I hadn't known about the die process of making these pieces. I appreciate the information.

Very nice. I have three Towle shot cups......I'll post them on a new thread. Rick.