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In his book "The First Huguenot Silversmiths of London" David McKinley attributes this mark, noted on a mote spoon and a snuff spoon, to Peter Harache II, and a very similar mark, also on a mote spoon, to Peter Harache 1 who did produce spoons as well as largeware.

I don't know a lot about OSP but I would say the style could suggest a date of c.1825 which would seem right for OSP. Apologies for the delay in commenting. I was hoping that someone better informed might chip in.

Yes. Not usual, but it does happen. I have a pair of spoons, London 1798, but engraved JMC over 1791, for example.

I don't know the maker but the mark is in gothic script, often used by platers. I read it as L T Co. The unicorn is an engraved family crest.

The revised Jackson simply reproduces a list from the earlier Jackson which shows that there was a record of Britton in 1848, possibly in something like a trade directory. This makes sense given that the additional information on this forum shows him still in business in 1851 as I read it. The Jacks...

Well, they are not British silver marks and I am not aware of any S African silver marked with just two sets of gothic initials, but I don't know enough about S African silver in the late 19th and early 20th century to be definitive. They look more like the marks found on silverplated or pewter item...

If an item is not plated x ray fluorescence testing will actually reveal what the composition of the alloy is. It can also revea if the object is plated but as Oel says I think it probably cannot analyse the metal beteneath a layer of plate.

Try a search for x ray fluorescence testing. But it can be quite expensive if you have to use the services of a scientific laboratory.

The shape of both blade and handle would suggest to me a mid 18th century date in the case of English cutlery so I guess much the same goes for American cutley and your grandfather's attribution seems right. Without any marks to pin down the maker you have to take it on trust that it was American ma...

London import marks for 1889: F= foreign, O is date letter. TG is the sponsor (importer or importer's agent. Maybe someone else can put a name to the initials. The other mark's will have been applied by the maker. Not something I know much about, but I would start with Hanau silver if trying to iden...

Interesting. Glad to have been of a little help even though you were left with the real work.

This doesn't take you any further but I think the last letter of the name is a K, which makes more sense than a hard sign which should not follow a vowel, i.e. Bogdanovik.

While looking for something else I have come across a possible attribution for the DS crowned mark: Daniel Shelmerdine. An engraved trefid spoon of c.1690 with this mark is recoreded in "English Irish and Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute" with this suggested...

Oh well, just to keep the confusion going, Thos Law did enter a TL mark as well as his full name mark. It would appear from the web site I cited above that the sons continued to use the father's mark. I am not familiar enough with Sheffield silver of the period to know whether this could be TL by it...

You will find a bit about Thomas Law here:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~lawed/SILVERSMITHSPART1.htm
You will see he was a cutler as well as a silversmith. By the time of your knife and fork it will have been his sons running the business.

Thanks for the update — pleasing to have the two examples and to be able to confirm that it is indeed the DS crowned mark with a pellet below. I now realise why I thought I had seen the mark before. I actually have it on a pair of trefid sweetmeat forks that I picked up a few years ago. Sorry the pe...

Eaton and Wrighton of Birmingham. Their E&W mark first registered at Chester in 1902 and re-registered most recently in 1959.

I 'm afraid this is a made up piece. The section with the hall marks taken from a mid 18th century spoon and insertd between a new bowl and upper stem/finial, probably put together in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Frakturschrift describes the old type of lettering (out of fashion since WW2) used in the engraving. The actual words appear to be “Lm hundert Rubel”. I can’t make sense of the Lm but the next two words mean “hundred roubles”. I don’t know why there should be a superscription in German on a Russian ...

The experts in Russian silver may be able to add something more definitive to my comments, but the engraving simply seems to be a copy of a 5% Russian bond certificate, presumably from Tsarist Russia given the capitalist implication and the use of the old orthography. Your photo is upside down which...