Very unusual item - but the date mark doesn't add up

[BEB]

Hi everyone,

I received an antique rose gold pendant as a christmas present. It was bought in England. I know nothing about hallmarks, but I have spent time researching as much as possible to understand it before bothering you guys here :-). I think I've got most of it worked out, except the date/assay mark. The time it represents would be impossible for the piece.

Here is the Hallmark (if you click on it it will open up larger and be a bit easier to read):



OK, from what I understand:

1. JT&S - makers mark, probably John Thompson & Sons, London, although I have also found a John Troup & Sons registered with the Birmingham office.

2. 9 and 375 - Karat Stamp, it's 9 karat gold, and probably english gold as there is no import mark on it and it appears that english gold got the 9 as well as the 375.

3. Assay Office - this appears to be a sideways anchor, which would mean Birmingham. From what I understand they used the same marks on gold as they did on silver.

4. Date Stamp (year of Assay). This looks like a lower case q to me, which according to the Birmingham list means 1915 (although when I have put my mouse over the letter on the web site I found the list from, a note popped up with the date range 1887 - 1927, which I don't understand what it means).

http://www.theassayoffice.co.uk/date_letters.html

The date stamp is where I come unstuck.

This piece is representative of the Third Reich, so it would be impossible for it to have been made or registered in 1915. Have I got my understand of the date stamp wrong? The Sussex office had 1933 as the year of the "q" date stamp, and that would make absolute perfect sense for this piece as the NSDAP came into power in 1933. However the Assay office mark is definately Birmingham.

Any help with this would be really appreciated, as the piece certainly has my curiousity up and it certainly would have been very unusual for something like this to have been made in England.

Thanks

N
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[dragonflywink]

Not really my area, but Birmingham 1915 looks right to me, the reason that 1887-1927 pops up on the assay office site is because those are the dates in that column. A picture of the item is usually helpful for identification - in this case, having a hard time imagining a connection to the Nazi party. All that comes to mind is a swastika, which was commonly used in that time period as a good-luck symbol - the shape goes back centuries as symbol and/or decorative devise for numerous different cultures.

~Cheryl
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[larkfield]

I would just add that John Thompson and Sons looks OK to me, they registered a mark in Birmingham as well as other assay Offices.
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[BEB]

Not really my area, but Birmingham 1915 looks right to me, the reason that 1887-1927 pops up on the assay office site is because those are the dates in that column. A picture of the item is usually helpful for identification - in this case, having a hard time imagining a connection to the Nazi party. All that comes to mind is a swastika, which was commonly used in that time period as a good-luck symbol - the shape goes back centuries as symbol and/or decorative devise for numerous different cultures.

~Cheryl

Thanks for the replies,

The pendant is in the shape of a Swastika. I know that the Swastika has been used as a symbol of good luck etc for centuries. A Swastika is depicted as either left facing or right facing.

With the hallmark on the back of it, my pendant can only be worn one way — right facing.

The majority of Hindu etc related sites that have Swastikas that I looked at all seem to have it facing to the left. The National Socialists definitely only used it facing to the right, which is why I assumed that the pendant must have had a NS connection. However the National Socialists also often tilted their Swastika to the right, which is not the case with my pendant.

However I have just read on a site that the Hindus etc started predominantly using the left facing Swastika after the second half of the 20th century, to avoid connotations with the National Socialist symbol.

http://www.crystalinks.com/swastika.html

I didn’t know that, so that might mean that my right facing Swastika could be from 1915, and was used as a good luck charm prior to the National Socialists using it. I still think that it would have been unusual for someone who was English to have had it made, but it could have links to when England had colonies in the Hindu part of the world. Or then again, other European countries also had links to the Swastika (eg Finland), so who know, it could be anyone that had it made, not just an English person. It will remain mystery! (um, unless anyone knows if the jewellers is still around and I can contact them and try to trace the name of the person who had it made).

I'm pleased that I seemed to have managed to get the parts of the hallmark right, it's something I've never done before!

Cheers

N
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[dragonflywink]

Possible, but not really likely that this was custom-made (an assumption made without actually seeing it), the use of the symbol was not unusual, shows up in jewelry, souvenirs, needlework, etc. of the late 19th-early 20th century, sometimes in conjunction with other lucky symbols like wishbones, horseshoes, 4-leaf clovers, rabbit's feet, etc., and in my personal experience - the right-facing form seems more common. Do suspect rather large numbers of items with swastikas were destroyed or hidden away starting in the 1930s.

~Cheryl
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