Help with broken silver spoon(?) Marks and pattern.

[DocBeav]

I found this broken spoon (I think it was a spoon) while metal detecting the beach in Virginia Beach. I tested it and believe it is silver. I'm having problems IDing the marks on it. I can make out the second mark, it looks like a "C" but the two after it are pretty bad after being in the ocean. The first mark may have been some kind of symbol as what I can see doesn't look like a letter. Can anyone help? Love to know where it cam from and how old it may be. Searched the site and through all the different countries but couldn't nail it down. Could the first on be the remnants of a British mark? Is the "C" a date code? Photos are posted at the location below, tried to get them uploaded here but was having problems.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88647464@N06/

How to Add Images

[dognose]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forum.

From what I can make out, it looks to me like an English provincial spoon.



'TS' (upside down) - Lion Passant - Dateletter C (?) - Town mark

Of course, it could be American pseudo marks.

The Town mark, if indeed that what it is, may reveal much.



Trev.

[DocBeav]

Thanks Trev, that is closer than I would have ever gotten! Any idea of time period?

[agphile]

If it is English the positioning of the marks low on the stem and the pattern combine to suggest the 1770s. If American it could be later, into the 1800s, but a later English spoon would have the marks at the top of the stem and I think the pattern itself will only have appeared in England during the 1760s at the earliest.

[DocBeav]

Thanks again for the info. Found it a few weeks ago while metal detecting along Virginia Beach. Lots of old ships out there somewhere!