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Some other tips on assay marks. The Lion Passant Guardant (Lion's head turning to look directly at you) became Lion Passant (Lion's head facing to left) in 1822 at London. In the former case you can normally see two eyes staring at you . Actual London assay punch of Lion Passant of both types had ve...

Sorry, misunderstood the word "span". I get dafter with age. Distance between each "bowl" inner surface when no pressure is around 21mm currently. Max distance between inner surface of arms (near bow ) is 26mm. Virtually all cast ( and other tongs ) had concave bowls - I THINK pr...

"Bowl " diameter is 17mm -18mm (they are very slightly elliptical) and utterly flat and polished on the inner surface - so obviously not designed to hold something slippery and non-rigid. Good point- although spoon shaping a casting is difficult it's not impossible- so the targets are limi...

A very good FREE source of information on Channel Island marks and makers, by Freddie Cohen is available as a PDF download at http://www.jerseyheritagetrust.org/edu/resources/index2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Silver in the Channel Islands by F.Cohen and N. Bird The...

There are two more examples to be found on the very useful website of castsugartongs.co.uk. William Harrison (in PR 1773 as bucklemaker ),early marks as smallworker, one mark specifically as bucklemaker 1781. Very well known and prolific bucklemaker . *(One of his apprentices, Samuel Moulton , who h...

I'm afraid I must disagree. There were many bucklemakers who made cast tongs. Most had bucklemaker marks registered and all certainly have made both buckles and cast tongs in large surviving numbers From our own collections alone we have BOTH cast tongs and buckles from each of the following John Fa...

Thats an interesting observation Hymie. The reason I suspect is that many of the cast tongs were made or supplied by silver bucklemakers - they'd were used to small model and mould making and hence often made tongs before 1770. As bucklemakers they were very suspect ( the used car salesmen of the da...

Sizes are Bowl diam 17mm, Max width of arms (at arch) 12mm, overal lenght 82mm. As granmaaa said, these small ones are around, but very rare. This is the first I've actually seen but as I said previously Luddington has shows a pair with very similar proportions and identical round pierced bowls by T...

My wife has now received her somewhat belated Christmas present . We have examined these tongs with some trepidation but are delighted to report that in our opinion these tongs are exactly as made in 1785/86. The bowl and the first section of the arm are from a single casting, probably made an exist...

There is a slight ambiguity to the above post. "My wife has a cast pierced pair by Charles Hougham with an identical central section to the bowls of these" This means that the central section of each of the arms of a pair of tongs in her collection has a boss identical to the bowls of the ...

My wife has just acquired a late Christmas present - these tongs. When she receives them the matter of deciding if they are in original form or an alteration can be better determined and I will report back. It's an open question but personally I think they are probably in their original form, which ...

Thanks Tom.
This explains why the later bright cut tongs are made in one piece only , as opposed to three for the caste ones. It was cheaper and had no drawbacks. Also why so many of the cast ones break at the piercing and need repair

A Happy New Year to all
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Maker is Charles Hougham. Form and size very unusual - my wife (who collects tongs) has gone bright green and is muttering "Why did I not get those for Christmas ?"
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Faux and Love were working at the end period for cast / pierced tongs. As bucklemakers their business was mainly model/mould making for casting, and the finishing of castings and they would have made tongs as an extention of that . By the period of brightcut tongs Faux would have not used much brigh...

John Faux of London. First and second marks as smallworker in 1763. Third mark in partnership with George Love in 1764. Partnership recorded as bucklemakers in the Parliamentary Report of 1773. Partnership dissolved on death of Love in 1773 (PROB/11/993). Four subsequent marks as bucklemaker 1773 to...

There is an amazing ignorance of the size and technical capabiliies of Hester Batemans factory, partly fueled by the American view of her as a widow working alone in a small workshop. Hester had a big factory with over a hundred workman, overseen by her son Peter (who was a real tyrant it appears). ...

That exactly it. But beware of over regular cleaning - I only clean when I begin to feel ashamed to show a piece to some-one ! The other thing about buying in a black condition and hand polishing is that you can leave a minute amount of tarnish to add contast and depth to the detail, which if a bit ...

The whole question of cleaning is very personal but may I put the traditional view. Silver achieves a patination over the years - and we are talking perhaps two to three hundred years - which is usually a very slight grey tint . It is still shiny, but a mellow shine. Do not confuse patination with d...

Hi Sam The clue for you is that from 1784 to 1890 a sovereigns head was used in addition to the other assay mark. in 1799 in would be Geogre III. Absence of such mark indicates a post 1890 date. Pre 1784 very unlikely as the assay marks have been stamped using a block (the stub) which is very unlike...

What beautiful objects ! Your next task is to identify the armourials - if you do not know from family history - which may take some time. A copy of "Starting to collect Silver " by John Luddington has an excellent chapter by Michael Ingham on the subject which will get you under way. A wo...