<R.BS> into a rectangle. This means that the napkin ring was made by Rolason Brothers, Vyse St. Birmingham.
The napkin ring is clearly hallmarked for Chester
<lion> <shield>
But I am totally confused by the Chester date letter (see photos). This shows a
<date letter into a rectangle with squared off corners>
Initially, I thought the intricate date letter could be one of the Chester date letters within the date range 1839 to 1863 (a ‘D’ or ‘H’ or ‘Q’ or ‘U’ maybe). But this didn’t make sense for two reasons: -
(1) this date range would require there to be an extra Chester mark of a bust head immediately after the shield. As my napkin ring doesn’t have this extra mark, it pointed to the date being from 1890 onwards.
(2) the makers, Rolason Brothers (see above), were only making silver items between 1891 and 1926.
So I then checked out the Chester date letters from 1890 onwards. But all the date letters from 1901 onwards are in rectangles with a squiggle/bracket shaped base, and the date letter on my napkin ring is inside a normally shaped rectangular mark without the ‘squiggle/bracket’ on the base. So this left me with the eleven dates from 1890 to 1900. But none of these date letters seem to match the date letter on my napkin ring.
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