www.925-1000.com

This salt cellar puzzles me. It is about 7 cm wide, very well made and very heavy. When I got it, the cellar was black with tarnish (I don't think it has ever been used) so it could be over 50 years old. The mark is similar to that used by the Merrill Shops of New York - except that this is the mirror image of that mark. Did the Merril Shops also use a reverse mark, or is this by a different maker altogether?

That's a tough call. I have not been able to find anything else that's close. Scroll down on this site to see another version of their mark.

http://www.925-1000.com/americansilver_M.html

Regards,
Pat.

Thanks Patrick,

I didn't know of that other mark, which is also similar but still faces the opposite way. It's a tricky one. I suppose I'll just have to keep looking!

Best wishes

Mikael

Hi,
I believe both versions of the mark are Merrill. They were a smallish shop and were known to do custom work, I doubt they would have turned down a commission to do reproduction of an earlier piece like yours. Below is an example of a more typical Merrill piece with the reversed mark.
Regards, Tom

Hello Tom,

Thanks very much for your help, and what a great resource this forum is.

The mark on the porringer matches the one on the salt cellar, so if the porringer is known to be by Merrill, the shop must have made the salt cellar also. Please forgive this question if the answer is trivial, but what does '317' refer to? Did the maker assign sequential numbers to each type of silver item that the shop produced?

Best wishes

Mikael

To clarify, the porringer is not absolutely known to be by Merrill, but a Merrill attribution makes far more sense than any other.
As to the numbers, they could refer to different things. They were used "in shop" and every shop had its own system. Could be; pattern number, design number, form number, order number etc.. They tell us nothing, unless the system used by a particular maker is known to us, as is the case with Tiffany, but is not the case with most makers. Generally speaking, they are most often a design reference number enabling a retailer to contact the maker and order a dozen more "317's" so their shop foreman could be told to make a dozen more "317's".
Hope this helps.
Regards, Tom

Thanks, Tom; that's very interesting. Best wishes, Mikael