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So the marks on this beaker appear in a 1935 article on Scottish Spoons, but are listed as unidentified, possibly the earliest recorded thistle mark. IN the article the author refers to Jackson who lists the mark (without the thistle) as unattributed possibly Yorkshire circa 1690. This beaker has the thistle mark also, which would seem strange for English provincial. Has anymore research been done into this mark (I only have an old edition of Jackson which still lists it as possibly Yorkshire, without the thistle).

Reference for the 1935 article is: How, G E P, 1935, Early Scottish Spoons, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, January 14th, p.152

Hi,
This could be an example of transposed marks. Silver sheet with marks was taken from elsewhere, e.g. from a badly damaged piece, trimmed and filed to fit the bottom of the beaker and soldered rather unprofessionally.
Another possibility: beaker was damaged and repaired, retaining its own bottom sheet.
Anyway, it could not have left the workshop soldered like this.
Regards

That may be so, but the set of marks does exist elsewhere as well, that's what I'm more interested in researching. Here is the extract from the above referenced article, available for public consumption at http://journals.socantscot.org/index.ph ... /7937/7905

"a most interesting pair of trend spoons which I have recently seen. The marks are a thistle; what appears to be a
Catherine wheel; the letter H, similar to the Inverness mark which I suggest as a date letter for Inverness in 1688 (illustrated in fig. 6); and the maker's mark, S S crowned. Similar marks, without the thistle, unascribed maker are mentioned by Sir Charles Jackson amongst his unascribed Englishmarks. No thistle mark being known in England, I would suggest that the spoons are -probably of Scottish origin, although the S S crownedis a most unusual type of maker's mark in Scotland at that period"

Clearly the same maker etc. Any ideas who it might be?

I understand the Catherine Wheel comparison, but do you really think the Thistle image is actually a Thistle? ::: If the Thistle is actually another flower, perhaps that hallmark led the authors astray to look at Scotland when actually it points to somewhere else? :::

I think it looks more like a thistle than any other type of flower, and pretty similar to the one eventually used in Scotland.

Aguest wrote:I understand the Catherine Wheel comparison, but do you really think the Thistle image is actually a Thistle? ::: If the Thistle is actually another flower, perhaps that hallmark led the authors astray to look at Scotland when actually it points to somewhere else? :::

jok23 wrote:So the marks on this beaker appear in a 1935 article on Scottish Spoons, but are listed as unidentified, possibly the earliest recorded thistle mark. IN the article the author refers to Jackson who lists the mark (without the thistle) as unattributed possibly Yorkshire circa 1690. This beaker has the thistle mark also, which would seem strange for English provincial. Has anymore research been done into this mark (I only have an old edition of Jackson which still lists it as possibly Yorkshire, without the thistle).

Reference for the 1935 article is: How, G E P, 1935, Early Scottish Spoons, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, January 14th, p.152