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TreasureHunter333 wrote:Hello, I’m new here. I signed up so that I could share a few photographs of a spoon I have, and hopefully get some thoughts about it. It’s been in family storage for a long time and was a gift to my mother sometime in the 1960s. I don’t know where it was purchased. The generic tag from the shop is still attached.

I’ve searched this forum and online trying to answer a few question, which has led me to further questions. This spoon seems not to have a “complete set” of hallmarks. The makers mark (initials) seems either to never have been stamped or possibly almost completely worn off (see my red arrow in last image below).

Any speculation and/or information about either of those two possibilities would be great.

Also, any comments on the “water wheel” symbol on the front of the spoon handle would be interesting. Thanks. See images below:

Sasropakis wrote:The maker's mark has probably just worn due to polishing and maybe it was initially also struck poorly. It's impossible to know the maker because spoons are the most common type of silverware. All other marks are there except the duty mark (soveraign's head) because it was introduced in 1784 and therefore can't be found in a spoon from 1783.

The wheel symbol is called a crest and it's a heraldic symbol of the family who were the original owners of spoon. Luckily the crest in question is not that generic and I found a match in Fairbairn's book of crests:

"Fell, Northumb., a catherine-wheel en- signed on the top with a cross patee fitched or. 167. 3"

See: https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsb ... 5/mode/2up and https://archive.org/details/fairbairnsb ... 6/mode/2up

Of course one can't see the colours in the spoon and it's possible that there could have been similar crest but with different colours than the one of the Fell family.