British Assay Office Marking Errors

[dognose]

Everyone has their off days and the staff at the assay offices were no exception, but their off days were as rare as hen's teeth. To find an example of a marking error on British silverware is indeed a rarity. If you have such an example, here's the place to post it.




An early example of a marking error performed in 1755 on a marrow scoop by the prolific silversmith Elias Cachart. Here the date letter has been struck twice at the expense of the town mark.




A teaspoon assayed at London in 1809 by an unknown maker. This is one of the more common errors that you are likely to come across, at this date the punches are clamped together in a stub and are struck by the use of a fly press. As can be seen, the first attempt (bottom set) at striking the marks is off centre as the spoon was mis-aligned, thus a second attempt was made to strike the marks in a more central position.

This spoon is also an excellent example of what happens when you attempt to clean the gunk out of the hallmarks with a nail or other such item. Not recommended!




A similar example of an error caused whilst using the fly press, this time on a table spoon made in the workshops of Solomon Hougham in 1811. This time, somewhat unusually, the assay office have defaced the town, standard and duty marks that were mis-struck on the first attempt.

Trev.

[Granmaa]

One example of the old "marked too near the edge", and I don't know what the Birmingham assayer was up to.

Miles

[dognose]

(Image)

Another fly press mishap. This time on a Solomon Hougham teaspoon assayed at London in 1810.

Solomon Hougham appears to have been somewhat unlucky with his submissions.

Trev.

[dognose]

This one is curious, two sizes of the 1784 incuse Duty mark and overlapping Lion Passants on this John Langlands & John Robertson teaspoon marked at the Newcastle Assay Office. These marks would have been struck by Matthew Pryor.

Trev.

[dognose]

Not much of an error, just the Marker at GH applying the hallmarks over the maker's mark, but the interesting thing is that once again the victim was no other than Solomon Hougham.



Trev.

[piette]

This thread is very interesting.
I don't know if mentioning this is a taboo on this forum, but am I right in thinking that mismarked items would be a great deal more collectable than other items due to rarity?
There is a similar situation with my Granddad who collects rare stamps. As well as nice and unusual stamps, he also orders stamps with tiny little printing errors which were done by mistake as they are extremely collectable.
Regards,
Piette

[dognose]

Hi Piette,

Yes, I guess anything that strays from the usual will attract more interest. In this case, errors that occured at Goldsmiths Hall were very few and far between so they are rare indeed, and if rare, then sought after.

Trev.

[ARGENTUM49]

Have you noticed that off center hallmarks appear only on flatware? I think the assayers were very busy with flatware at the time. It must be on almost industrial scale except for hand operating fly press. Also, I wonder if holloware could be hallmarked with fly press. Most probably not. One cannot place a teapot under the punching tool. I am sure that they were struck by hand — therefore irregular position on silver items, scattered randomly. Off center punching is understandable, but the mystery are missing date letters, city marks etc. because it was supposed that the entire set of hallmarks for that year was fixed together to the tool in normal order. Besides, did silver makers bring their hallmark tool to the assay office (most probably not) or punched their hallmark after returning from the Assay Office back to their workshop (more acceptable option) ? They certainly did not bother to strike their hallmark in perfect alignment with the rest of already punched hallmarks. An interesting topic: can you imagine them sitting by the fly press with hundreds of cutlery waiting to be placed at the punching plate, and have in mind that brought items were of different size and design. I think they did a great job and one would expect more off center mistakes than seen. On the other hand, silver from the period in your example is rare anyway. Personally, I would cherish items with mistakes like stamp collectors do (as mentioned in the thread). In short, it is good to research the work both of silver makers and Essay Offices. Do we know how many people worked in very busy Essay Offices e.g. London, Birmingham and Sheffield and how many fly presses they had? Still, we are talking about 18th century and early Victorian when silver was available to the limited high — class customers. The industrial revolution in 19th century has changed it all. (Attached the pick of hand operated fly press to help other members to understand the way it was done in case they are not familiar with the subject).

Ivan

[dognose]

Hi Ivan,

Just to clarify one point, it is a requirement under British hallmarking laws that all items submitted to assay are struck with a pre-registered maker's mark prior to the items being sent to the assay office. The items are left with a clerk along with a note detailing the items, weight and submittor. These details are entered into a register and then the items are passed to the Weigher, who in turn forwards them to the assayer. If the items pass the assay, then they are received by the Marker who will apply the necessary hallmarks and the items will be made available for collection, most often, on the same day.

Regards Trev.

[dognose]

Here's one from the York Assay Office, noted on a teaspoon assayed in 1834.



In this case the stamper has used the wrong date letter punch when marking a teaspoon. The punch used would have been the size required for larger objects, table spoons etc.

As to why this happened, well perhaps the stamper was marking table spoons as well as teaspoons, and could not be bothered to fetch the smaller punch, or possibly this item was marked just prior to a date letter change and the smaller punch had broken and it was perhaps not considered worthwhile having a replacement made.

Trev.

[dognose]

A marking error by the Edinburgh Assay Office:



A duplicate striking of the dateletter for 1908 at the expense of the Edinburgh Assay Office castle town mark on a submission by Hamilton & Inches.

Trev.

[dognose]

A marking error by the Birmingham Assay Office:



The Duty mark has been struck twice on this example by Joseph Willmore that was assayed in 1825.

Trev.

[dognose]

Not so much of marking error, but a poor choice of stamp size by the Dublin Assay Office:



There may not seem to much wrong with these marks, but the pieces that they are stamped on are teaspoons and the punches tiny.

Trev.

[dartsil]

Here is an example from a teaspoon by Edward Lees, hallmarked from 1806.

[rhodrit]

Here is an example of a wrong size punch being used. Two spoons almost identical dimensions, one with marks the size you expect but the other has a duty mark clearly not the right size for the table spoon!



Rhodri

[dartsil]

Not a hallmarking error but evidence of someone having had a few to many drinks when they struck the makers mark.

R F Mosley & Co (Robert Fead Mosley) Sheffield 1908

[rhodrit]

Hi all,
An example of a fly press error on a teaspoon by Charles Boynton(I) dated 1828/29.



All the best,
Rhodri

[dognose]

What is often thought to be an assay office marking error:



But no, this style of marking used by the Glasgow Assay Office was intentional. It was to provide a balance to the pattern of the marks following the discontinuation of the use of the Duty mark in 1890.

Trev.

[dognose]

A marking error by the London Assay Office on a secondary set of marks in 1894:



Trev.

[dognose]

A marking error by the Birmingham Assay Office from 1883:



What appears to have happened, is that stamper has struck the Lion Passant mark, and then, when about to strike the Birmingham mark, has become distracted, and placed the Birmingham punch directly on top of the Lion Passant mark.

Trev.