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Here is a puzzling question which I was recently asked. Did Scottish silver ever have a duty drawback mark?

Maurice Ridgeway reports that eight drawback punches were delivered to the Chester Assay Office, but there is no evidence of them being used. So it can be supposed that other offices also had drawback punches issued.

Hi Paul,

To my knowledge, the Duty Drawback punches, made by John Pingo by order of the Commissioners of Stamps, would have been supplied to all provincial offices. As to whether any of the offices used them is another matter, from memory, I don't recall ever seeing an example of such marking with the exception of those of London origin. The reasons is perhaps manifold, buyers of silverware were perhaps not aware they could reclaim Duty paid and likely silversmiths would not tell them, as it was they that would have to return the items to the assay office and they that would have to re-finish the items following the damage done by the striking of the mark, or perhaps in the seven months or so that the punch was in use, little was exported from the provincial towns, or maybe the assay offices made the whole procedure difficult, after all, it just made extra work for them, not just with the marking, but refunding Duty and all the extra paperwork that that would entail.

All in all, the assay offices resented the striking of the Duty mark, it was not a hallmark, but a mark that the government forced them to strike and forced them to collect the tax for them with little in the way of compensation.

Trev.

Hello Trev.
That sounds plausible. I have only ever seen the mark on London pieces, usually by Hester Bateman, who seemed to have some kind of duty dodging thing going on with the Channel Islands.

Regards,

Paul.

Here's one on a spoon by George Smith:



Trev.

Trev.

That is an excellent example!