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I am not sure where to post this, I don't want to show the items, but I want as much advice as possible not just American followers.
These are all marks by the same silversmith. I presume they are all from the same die.
Can there relative age be determined by the marks alone. I have seen and handled all the pieces, so my opinion would contaminate the question. I think this is really for any studier of marks, so maybe after awhile the question could be moved to "other countries" or somewhere.
Maurice
Hi Maurice, I see 2 maker's mark punches in use between these pictures. As a punch breaks-down cracks can appear and chips of metal can break-out. While it is possible to employ modern lazer-welding to attempt to heal this damage, I would hazard a guess the pieces struck with these punches are a tad older... early 19th century. During that period many punches were made of laminated steel as opposed to modern cold rolled steel. As a punch was used the stresses built up and caused the metal to fail along the lines of the lamination as appears to have happened here. As the damage is so much different between the 2 groups of photographs I am thinking 2 different punches were used. I would postulate that the one with the progression of best to worst damage would have been used on the older pieces with the new punch being on the latter piece.
I would have liked to take a plasticine imprint of each mark to be able to compare depth of the strikes and see the condition of the punch's striking surface.
For the discussion I have numbered your images 1-5 from top to bottom.
Punch 1:
Images 2, 3, 4 and 5used the same punch showing how the punch changed as it was used and started breaking.
Image 5 would be the oldest use of that punch, as you see no damage to the flourish of the R, the outline is neat and tidy.
Image 3 would be the next use of that punch, as you see the damage to the flourish of the R is just starting, the ends of the stamp are still parallel and the overall outline is fairly straight (the bottom edge appears to curve, but that could be from the depth of the strike or from the angle it was photographed).
Image 2 would be a next more resent usage. The lower left corner has been rounded; the bottom edge has been altered; the damage to the R is worse; a new crack has started on the upright or the R; and the end of the leg of the L has started to crack.
Image 4 is the latest use of the punch, All the damage has expanded and the entire outer edges appear to have been altered.
Punch 2:
Image 1 appears to be a different stamp or possibly the original stamp ground down until just a shadow remained and the imprint re-carved. The crack on the leg of the L could be where the earlier imprint damaged due to separation of the metal. Also note has the bottom-outside-edge has become dead straight? Yet there is still plenty of material below the bottoms of the letters.
As for age, one would have to see the style of the items and decide where they are from. I am lead to believe the triple stamping on silver was done in Great Britain when pieces where not able to be submitted to a guild-hall for hallmarking (then again it would not be the first time I was wrong).
Not ramblings at all, I realize I put in a slight trick by accident, and there is another mark I didn't show because I only have an example from a book and it is to degraded to be of much use. I will wait for some more comments before I give the additional information.
Thanks,
Maurice
I am not sure I can post images of all the items, for a number of reasons. But I do know the relative age, and even the age itself of all but one item.
The triple mark is relatively common in American silver too, or at least I have a collection of such pieces. I think it was found in certain areas, Mississippi Valley, Philadelphia, and was more common in the late 18th c.
You did get the age correct, all of these pieces are late 19th or early 18th c.
Maurice
When I looked at this last night, my thoughts were that the oldest would have been image1, followed in age order by 5, 6, 3, 2, then 4. I failed to spot that there were two punches in use. Jim has an excellent eye.
Hi Maurice, I believe image 5 & 6 not same punch mark are used, image 2, 3, 4 same punch mark, image 1 stand alone. Four different punches have been used of the L.R mark.
I presume we are not going to get any other opinions. So this is what I know. The first triple struck mark is the one I do not know the relative age of. The others are all from a period from 1797 to 1804. There are two unintentional tricks built into the question. First number 2 and 3 are the same mark on the same piece, the photography is different. The second is that the last two marks 5 & 6 are marks on a set of two pieces of silver. So the best answer is that 5 & 6 are the oldest pieces. You can see the crack on the leg of the R starting to appear. Then 2,3, and 4, as the mark is deteriorating badly with damage to he leg of the R and also the upright.
So where does 1 fit? Either before 5 and 6 or after 2,3 &4. The answer is not certain. The first possibility is that it is before, because the mark is less deteriorated than any of the others. But the problem is the base of the L extends off to the left, which doesn't occur in any of the other marks. The only explanation would seem to be that the original mark had deteriorated so much that the silversmith ground down the mark until only some of the mark was left, it was then re-engraved, but a new crack opened up on the base of the L, along the lined of a lamination. I would like to bring the subject up again after taking pictures of 1, 4, 5 & 6 under the same conditions. Then perhaps an overlay of the marks will confirm or condemn the theory, by use of an overlay of the marks. Unfortunately these are not all available in one place for maybe a year, so patience is necessary.
Maurice
