www.925-1000.com

As it states on the chart, Gorham used dating on hollowware, not flatware. The C is probably just the mark of some forgotten dealer.

I have never been comfortable with this partnership. Almost all the examples I have seen feel too late in style; the marks and pseudo-marks, if looked at without bias, so to speak, would more likely indicate a New York origin. It is true that Cleveland traveled about quite a bit, including to New Yo...

ep = electroplate

A badly damage example

Plus, in later years, their respective sons, Charles and Edward, Jr., though the firm's name remained the same.

The Ovington brothers father, Henry Alexander and Ovington Benedict's mother Susan, were brother and sister.

he is living in the 1850 census

I beg your pardon -- that should read 1870 census.

Henry P Elias was born in Wales in about 1832 and was serving a jewelry dealer apprenticeship with Joseph Draper in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1850. To correct the record, the Wales born Henry P. Elias in Duhme's household is listed as an apple dealer in the 1850 census, not an apprentice. He is listed as...

Just the pattern or finish/type number. Your acid test is pretty much a waste of time and money. Besides being quite inaccurate, it really doesn't tell you anything about the actual makeup of the piece -- silverplate will often test the same as sterling because all it is reacting to is the surface i...

It would be quite unlikely that Pike manufactured any flatware on his own. It was common practice to buy goods from one of the numerous wholesale makers and either having it punched with your name at the factory or doing so yourself.

A. H. Pike was a well known jeweler in Kankakee IL. The photo, taken in 1877, shows him wearing a white coat and standing in the doorway of his shop in the Fair Building.

While I agree it is likely a NY state pseudo, the Haight attribution is one of the more unlikely ones put forth. There is nothing in the records to indicate that he was anything more than a mildly successful retail jeweler in Newburgh. His own mark is found twinned with half a dozen pseudo marks (in...

I was thought of him or Charles Henry Vancott of Madison WI, whose father had been a partner of John Polhamus in NYC, but both seemed to late for the piece.

Meriden Cutlery Company -- typical goods.

Not if the designed was patented in 1904. . .
But perhaps the picture that didn't show up on your post will help with identification.

An admirable effort. I know too well the difficulties of deciphering census taker's penmanship and phonetic spelling.

Are these Ancestry or Footnote transcribed names? Or did you look at each page?

Henry Beebe Marsh?

He would have been 16 in 1825.

The mark is B & R, not BUR. Possibly Burnet & Ryder of Philadelphia.

The second is Frederick Starr Blackman (retailer) and Wood & Hughes (wholesaler).