Hi -
[quote="silvermistletoe"]My friend has the relic from his grandmother, the silver spoon of 1820s-1840s of the silversmith mark Х.БАШ . The grandmother's family comes from Rēzekne (Rezhitsa) , Eastern Latvia (Latgale / Lettgallia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C4%93zeknehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LatgaleDuring the Czarist times Latgale were included into Vitebsk gubern
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitebsk_GovernorateRundale catalog does not give any information about the Latgale region silversmiths
I think this spoon could have been related to Latgale or current Belarus, Wilno, Białystok...
Does anyone recognize this hallmark and could comment it to me?
You perhaps know the connections of the large Jewish populations in the above named areas East Latvia, Witebsk, Vilnius, Bialystok etc. and the Jewish silversmiths from Warsaw.They often exchanged their trade marks among themselves, etc.
It was traded, exchanged and cheated. Sometimes you really do not know who was the maker and who was the seller. My
example are the Szkarlat brothers - they used several logos and marks - sometimes Latin letters or Cyrillic letters plus the old wellknown 12 Loth.
I wrote: The shown spoon is from Poland and
I guess as a manufacturer
the environment of B. Szkarlat.
I guess!! Sadly whole populations and villages incl. archives vanished during WW II. It will be impossible to find the actual maker I think.
The OP know the first hand circumstances of his family - so maybe he understand what I want to express.
Regards
Goldstein