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Early 19th Century spoon with “balloon” mark

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2019 5:48 pm
by Essexboy Fisher
Hello I just bought the serving spoon shown in the picture below as it had crisp marks and I did not recognise them.

Image

Image

If I have posted it in the correct section on the forum I have obviously learnt a little about the spoon now. I believe it is silver and we see “Scheel” on the finial, presumably the maker’s name. My assumption is that “Scheel” is a German a name. I was surprised to find that no “Scheel’s” were mentioned in the forum's German silver section. The spoon does not carry the mid 1880’s introduced “crescent and crown” German national mark but before that time German silversmithing was “City/Town” based. The second mark on the spoon looked to me like a roundish hot air balloon with little birds painted on and with the basket suspended underneath. Taking that image in mind I looked in our 925-1000, German section, pre 1886, and soon came upon “Kassel City” in “Hesse” and there is my balloon mark. In my composite picture you can see the letter “H” on the side of the “basket” the letters in that position are the code for the “Guild Assay Master”. Further research on the forum found a fairly early post relating to “Kassel” and there “Blakstone” had commented:
The "H" in the city mark indicated Kassel guild assayer “Georg Friedrich Persch”, who served from 1836 until the dissolution of the guild around 1865.
That’s my bit of work done now but can the forum give some more information on the maker so that my spoon can possibly be closer dated. Also was there any standardisation in the purity of the silver used before 1886? I hope my photo is useful for reference, but below are 3 more posts that still have photos of the variable, Kassel city mark.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=6346&hilit=kassel

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=50972&hilit=kassel

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=14388&hilit=kassel

Fishless

Re: Early 19th Century spoon with “balloon” mark

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:26 pm
by Theoderich
GOTTLIEB AUGUST SCHEEL, *1816 +1879 , M1842

A problem in Kassel
you find not much spoons with date time an engraving

Re: Early 19th Century spoon with “balloon” mark

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:52 pm
by Essexboy Fisher
Thank you Theoderich for your quick up date on the maker of my spoon. I had a quick look on the internet with the name. I found nothing different on line to give a more precise date for my spoon. It is obvious that "G.A.Scheel" was working at some period while “Georg Friedrich Persch” was the "Assay Master" so for now my spoons label will have to read circa 1836-1865. Still, I now have a German spoon in my collection, at least 150 years old.
Thank you
Fishless