mystery soup ladle

[DianaGaleM]

My main interest is flatware manufactured by the German company, WMF. Occasionally, I'll buy a mixed lot, then find myself wandering in the wilderness of non-WMF marks. In this case, I'm assuming that identifying the manufacturer will not be possible, but I presume there's no harm in asking...

The only mark on the piece is a "13" in a box, which I presume is related to the thickness of silverplating.









Any hope here?

[dognose]

Hi Diana,

Unless it's obviously plated, I would investigate the possibility that this is solid silver.

The style is very much that of Austro-Hungarian silver, and 13 likely to identify the 13 loth standard, but as to why the piece would lack official marking if silver, I have no idea.

Trev.

[Bahner]

Hello, agree with Trev that this is probably silver of a fineness of 13 Lot. But I tend to believe that this is from middle, southern or southwestern Germany. As to the reason why other marks are missing (except for the reason that someone at the workshop simply forgot to punch them): compare with this thread for a possible explanation:

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=15974&hilit=guilds

Best wishes, Bahner

[DianaGaleM]

You're right, it must be solid silver. I polished part of it, and underneath there is no sign of plate being worn off, even on the back of the bowl:



I'm not used to finding solid silver in a mixed lot of silver plate, so I wasn't thinking along those lines. But it also makes sense that it would be German.

I bought an old chest with four large drawers outfitted with "English racks." Three drawers were filled with older German WMF silver plate, but the fourth drawer was a jumbled mix of patterns and manufacturers. This is the first piece out of the mixed drawer that I've tried to identify. And there is a second, very similar soup ladle, also marked with "[13]"; however, it's very banged up:









Good grief, each one of these weighs almost half a pound!

Thank you for your help. I've gone from being bored with these to thinking they're pretty cool. And I wonder what else is in this drawer...