William Smith of Peterhead

[dartsil]

Can anyone assist at all with this mark, WS WS on a sugar spoon/shovel. Very amateur looking punch , is it that of William Smith of Peterhead?

[dognose]

Hi,

William Smith of Peterhead did use a crude punch, but I would say the known mark is not a good match with your example.

Trev.

[dartsil]

So would that mean we are looking at William Scott of Dundee, there are many WS marks but only Scott of Dundee and Smith of Peterhead documented in Turners book as WS WS.

Just not sure which if any of these I can attribute this spoon to?

[dognose]

I suspect there are more unknown marks than known. Add to that the fact that as the marks were unregistered, there was no real need for replacement punches to resemble the original ones. So it may well be William Smith but...........

I personally think a lot of Scottish provincial marks should be prefixed possibly/probably.

Can you add your thoughts to this post? : viewtopic.php?f=61&t=32724

Trev.

[dognose]

Just a thought, but if you can post an image of the whole spoon(?), then if someone else has a William Smith example, there may be some similarities in workmanship and design to be seen.

Trev.

[dartsil]

will retake image Trev.

Downloaded from camera and cropped it but appears its to big for the forum board and will not take the upload.

Will take on a lower camera setting and see what I can do.

[dartsil]

Length 161mm, bowl dimensions 40x31mm , weight 36 grammes.

[Scotprov]

I have seen a similar mark before, but it was not attributed to any of the known makers.
An example of the spooon being better than the punch, but there is the chance that the maker did not want to be known, as it was a £100 fine, as well as loss of piece, if caught not having it assayed. That sum was twice the annual stipend of a vicar, middle class and not badly off!