Silver? Silverplate? Tongs 'Centaur' type mark - Help please

[machavellli]

Hi,

Could anyone please help me ID this mark on a pair of sugar tongs ? (I think they are silver as there is no plate loss visible, but the only mark is the one mentioned below)

The tongs have a very Art Nouveau design to the arms & the only mark is a rectangular cartouche containing a centaur type creature holding a pan pipe ?

I've looked through the site & the Jan Divis book but can't find anything the same,

Many thanks,

Dugi

[silverport]

Hello

First: I thank you that you have placed yours questions!

Second: Sorry! It's «Plated»! But why: This kind of object you could get most times - but not always of course - in a good condition; it's equal: in silver alloy or plated.
Yours object has the typical French mark for plated - normally a square e.g. filled up like a screen - in yours case by centaur; or a rectangular one with producers name e.g. CHRISTOFLE.

Third: Sorry again! It's not «Art Nouveau» - it's French «Neo Baroque».
The whole appearence is «French» e.g. in pattern, sculpture ...
«French» is also makers symbol itself - in an elegance you wouldn't see often in makers mark of that period = 1920-1940 approximately.

I personally know until yet only two centaur mark's:
«H.A. Erbe, Schmalkalden, Thuringia, Germany» (centaur left side oriented, without any addition as I remember) and a french one. That's «Orfevrerie D'Ercuis» - top left corner a capital letter O and top right corner a capital letter E: the centaur also left side oriented.

Yours mark is very expressive - also by addition of a flaute.

«Orfevrerie D'Ercuis» was settled in that time in French village/town Ercuis - since the name. The company still exist e.g. in Paris.

Place yours question to their company historians - and please inform then after «925-1000» forum too.

Thank you again that you've placed here yours questions!

Have seen this imaginative mark is a present of you; thank you.

Kind regards silverport

[machavellli]

Dear silverport,

Thank you very much for the info, it is appreciated.

The mark is certainly very similar to the Ercuis mark, so I'll follow that up & let you know

Kind Regards,

Dugi

[icalabrese]

Hello.

I think that the trade mark in question is different from that used by Ercuis.
The centaur gallops playing a tuba while that of Ercuis is keeping up and holding an arrow.
I possess a bucket filter that in addition to the aforementioned mark, it has two other two points - Z II - in a rectangle (used in Holland for the import silver .835) and 2GR in a square.
I therefore think that it may be a silver object imported perhaps from a former Dutch colony.

Cordially