Postby dognose » Sun Sep 04, 2011 6:00 am
Hi,
A fair amount of the marks that were used by British silverplaters are meaningless, they were just struck to imitate official silver hallmarks.
Some marks do have meanings, some firms, Elkingtons, Barnards, Walker & Hall etc., used a dateletter system to indicate the year of manufacture, many firms used quality indicator marks, A1, A, B, etc. and others applied trade marks.
Your specific question regarding the third mark on your piece, yes, this mark was used by several different platers and it may, perhaps, represent an animal hide, indicating that the item has a 'skin' of silver. This is just a personal thought without any backup evidence.
Hopefully someone will come up with some thoughts on the maker of your piece.
Trev.