Sorry to bring bad news, but the Jacobite story is a non-starter. I contacted the top expert, and he is sure that this is a normal Edinburgh piece, all-be-it missing the thistle, castle and date letter. Richard .
Sorry about delay, just found out my hotel has WiFi, so going through my emails and found this. The 'D' is not like any of Douglas' that I have seen with that bump on the inside of the back. Further, he does not seem to have used the pellet between the letters, at all. Another thing is that the shap...
Apologies, I have been very tied up for a couple of months. Sadly, I cannot help with this one, it is not a mark that I have seen before. It is not like any JS that I have seen previously, as the 'J' is virtually a reversed 'L', with alonger stroke at the bottom than was used by Sturrock or Sellar o...
Not sure if you wanting the use of the pieces, but, frpom the left:- jam spoon; butter knife; pickle fork; bread fork (for passing the slices of bread, not toasting); sugar sifter.
With regard to the item in the Finial 15/01 about a Richard Ferris spoon with only RF, the tri-cusp duty mark and the lion. In Finial 15/02, Ronald Grant responded with reference to his article in Finial 8/06, where he had stated that, from his research, this tri-cusped duty mark appears to have bee...
Hello Deirdre, You asked about books for info, the best for Chester is The Compendium of Chester Gold & Silver Marks 1570 -1962 by Ridgeway & Priestley, published by the Antique Collectors' Club. This gives approximately 10,000 marks with the bonus that it also includes 2000 with Birmingham ...
Miles I'd say that the left hand one is not worth touching up, unless you have a perfect example of the crest. If it's not your own family crest, is it worth it? If you want it to have a crest, and you want to do it yourself, design your crest. then practice the design on some copper sheet, then try...
Would agree that the tines do look out of proportion, shortened. The Baron's coronet is interesting. According to Fairbairn, when coronets are used to show rank, they must never be shewn without the cap attached. So this fork was a little bit of pulling rank, apparently.
Hello Miles, I do engrave a little, but I am still on the learning curve. It is not as easy as all that, believe me. I would advise practising on some scrap pieces before you go near anything good. HS Walsh stocks gravers, the handles and the book. One problem is that you need to bend the shank and ...
The bright cut engraving and the crests etc. were done using freehand gravers in Georgian times. You can buy the gravers new from Cookson or Walsh, among others, but I find that old ones hold their edge far better, and you can sometimes get these in antique shops or on eBay (but they are quite sough...
Hello, It's from the Ziegler workshops. There is quite a lot marked with the single Z, apparently as there were several members of the family working in a large commune style workshops. There is quite a bit that was sold on for resale.
I'm not sure how they were done in the main, possibly by impressing the mark onto a red hot piece of metal (steel) to create the cameo (standing above the surrounding level) punch we normally see. It was easier to carve round whatever punch mark you were creating than to dig it out accurately, so, t...
The upper set of marks are for Chester. The HF in a lozenge, unfortunately is unknown but was active from 1910 -12. Next mark is the Chester import mark, an acorn, the final one is the date letter, I cannot make out properly.
20 years ago, there was a firm which actually used a press to do the berrying. A friend of mine got there just after they had berried a nice pair of Greenock table spoons, thus reducing the value in that case. The pitch is a medium which will allow some 'give' so that the embossing depth is controll...
I would say yes, John Stone of Exeter was working, according to Jackson (1989), from 1825 when he was mentioned in the Freeman's List, until 1867. Culme has the London registered mark in the 1840s with that Stone living in Exeter. If we look further in Culme, there is James Shipwright, who had the J...
Crown inside heart is Finland; 813H is the standard of silver (81.3%); H7 was the date letter for 1961. The other two marks are more difficult; Lion lying down may be town mark for Kristiina, difficult to be sure without photo, which would make the bar with 3 dots the maker's mark probably.
Technically, yes, the most collectable pieces were illegal. The thing was that it was made to order for local people, so it was not displayed. Without the date letter, it was very difficult to say when it was made. They could have assayed items on show, and sell assayed pieces to anybody they did no...
By law, all silver was supposed to be assayed at Edinburgh from 1784, and duty of 6d per ounce sent to the Govt. The full story is in Jackson wrt the duty to be paid. The Scots were not too keen on money going to the Sassenachs, but some of the smiths had some of their wares duty-marked, just in cas...