blakstone wrote:Konstantin Maximovich Kolpakov, son of Vilnius assayer Maxim Grigorievich Kolpakov, was born in 1842 and graduated from the St. Petersburg Assayer’s School in 1860, upon which he was appointed an assistant assayer in St. Petersburg. His first appointment as a full assayer was to Kiev on 21 Jun 1862. However, within months, on 10 Sep 1862, he was transferred to Kaunas/Kovno, replacing disgraced assayer Feyodor Ivanov, who was found to have been smuggling gold articles which he then illegally marked. Kolpakov remained at Kaunas/Kovno without interruption until the 1896 re-organization of assay office personnel.
Leizer Pinchusovich Scheinker was born in 1850 and recognized as a master in the Vilnius Jewish Goldsmith’s Guild on 9 Jun 1874. He was registered at the Vilnius Assay Office from 1877 to 1900 and is recorded as having four apprentices 1883-1889.
This seems to be definitive: Kolpakov was assayer at Kaunas/Kovno 1862-1896, while Scheinker was registered at Vilnius 1877-1900. But I concur with what everyone else has said: the dodgy look of the marks and questionable workmanship are evidence enough that the buckle is not authentic.
Ref: Edmundas Laucevicius, Lietuvos auksakalyste : XV-XIX amzius [Lithuanian Goldsmiths, 15th-19th Centuries], (Vilnius: Baltos Lankos, 2001), pp. 382-383, maker #II.952; p. 408-409, assayer #13.
Hi, Blakstone.
Yes, Laucevicius correctly called a surname of master
Ivanov, but he didn't tell that till 1862 its surname was
Spiridonov. And only in 1862 its surname corrected on
Ivanov. Before 1862 there was
Feodor Spiridonov, but after 1862 -
Feodor Ivanov. The mistake was in documents. The surname of the father of the master was mixed with his
middle name.
Best Regards.