spoons from Edinburgh?

[Hose_dk]

I bought 2 tea spoons as danish spoons around 1860 - I knew they are not danish but when i had them at home. That must be Edinburgh. And tax mark that must be the very first one - then my spoons marks must be rare or?
X
X

And next question who is maker - no year mark but that tax mark is it what I translate it into?

[2209patrick]

Hello.

My reference, "The Edinburgh Goldsmiths I..." by Rodney and Janice Dietert shows the following similar mark:

.

P indicates when he started his apprenticeship.
F indicates his freedom year.

Don't know much about Edinburgh silver, so this is all the help I can provide.

Pat.

[Hose_dk]

Thanks for that name. I dont know anything about english silver - or very little. It was that I found that tax mark was introduced and that specific tax mark was only used for around a year, then the mark was changes. That must mean that the specific tax mark is rare. That could also be why no year letter was added.
Thanks for the reply.

[MCB]

Hello Hose

The Edinburgh Assay Office had been using a date letter sequence for a long time prior to the introduction of the Duty Mark. Perhaps the stamper counted the number of marks made, came to the usual number, didn't realise there should now be one more and missed the date letter. As you suppose this could indicate the Duty Mark was a recent addition to the work load.

According to page 550 of Jackson's "Silver and Gold Marks-----" this Duty Mark first came into use for Scottish silver assayed in Edinburgh on 1st December 1784 and continued until sometime in 1788 covering the date letters E to G.

Regards
Mike

[Hose_dk]

That was my thought. That it was missing by mistake. It is 2 spoons both missing the year mark.
The spoons look almost as made yesterday. I soppose that 2 tea spoons where not used that much.
The funny thing is that we think rules regulations - but dont know much regarding work flow. That is not described. We get fractions when finding pieces here and there.

I read about reuse of silver marks. That was done in Denmark to save tax and payment to guardein. I have read of this and one day I bought a cup - the marks I could read in the store said 1770ties and then a masters mark. At home I found masters mark - 1830ties - the guy had reused old guardein, town and tax mark.
I have spoons where tax mark should not excist until years later - obvious the danish silver book assumed. Based upon what was found, but I now have have pieces showing that some marks was used before expected.
And thats the fun of collecting you puzzels the fact from what you find.

Thanks for the info.

[MCB]

Hello again Hose

The odd thing about tea spoons is that owners often seem to keep one or two in the kitchen drawer and the rest of a set tucked away somewhere unused.That you have two in fairly mint condtion could indicate the used ones had been traded as scrap and an heir took the rest of the set. The heir who got your spoons might similarly have put them away somewhere safe and so on to the next generation passed "grandmother's spoons", still hardly ever used.
For what it's worth I'd personally be happy to treat these two spoons as genuinely marked.

Regards
Mike

[Hose_dk]

That could be logically. I rush to present the idea at a new question. Pleas look her viewtopic.php?f=47&t=23049

[piette]

Hello,
It is not uncommon among early Scottish silver for a date letter to be missing. I have seen many pieces like this with no date letter, mostly from smaller provincial assay offices eg. Aberdeen, Banff, Perth but I have also seen objects with missing dates from Edinburgh.
Regards,
Piette

[agphile]

There weren't assay offices in these provincial towns. Maker's simply applied their own marks which might or might not include a version of the town mark..

[Hose_dk]

Also thanks for this info. Could be that I should start looing for english silver. I dont have much of it - it is almost only by mistae when I finde some.
But now my knowled of it is increasing.

[paulh]

That appears to be an “incuse” duty mark, which would put it as either 1784 or 1785.

[Hose_dk]

Yes - that is why I speak of a rare mark.
thangs from hose