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I have previously posted about the two marks currently attributed to Matthew CRAW, but I cannot find a reference anywhere to this makers mark CRAW on an undated Edinburgh spoon.
Does anybody have any information or opinion on this mark?
I would not dismiss the possibility that this mark may be that of WILLIAM Craw.
Your spoon may be as early as 1786 and the EAO site has last mention of William in 1798.
William Craw was known to have used a varity of marks. Ian Finlay in his 'Scottish Gold and Silver Work' (Revised edition by Henry Steuart Fothringham), notes: "There are in addition some anomalous marks, particularly two associated with William Craw. One of them is an animal usually described as a cat, which may be meant to mimic the English lion passant mark. The other is a crowned thistle, which Jackson illustrated upside-down in his table of unascribed Scottish marks. The significance of these two marks, if there is any, has not yet come to light. It must be remembered that Craw moved to Dumfries and the crowned thistle mark may therefore relate to his work there, rather than in Canongate."
Although the above does not refer to your example, it does show that William was happy not to stick to one mark.
William's move from Canongate to Dumfries occured around the 1769-1770 period. He became a burgess of Dumfries by purchase as a stranger on the 18th December 1769 and is not noted in the proceedings at Canongate, where he was admitted in 1760, after 1770.
So, the mark may well be the mark of Matthew, but don't close the door on William just yet.
