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Hi,

Here is a salt spoon with the following markings :


Minerva : France, 1848-1972
A, a point, V, a star below and above, and above all a crescent (?) in a lozenge : unknown maker, see pic below



Do you know this mark ?

The mark is "AV", but you have it upside down; the crescent is on the bottom. See here (last mark in the list): French Maker's Marks: A.

As stated there, the mark is that of Antoine Adrien Vautrin registered 6 Nov 1824 and cancelled 5 Sep 1844. As the Minerva mark was introduced 1838 (not 1848), this salt spoon dates between 1838 and 1844.

Although Vautrin's address given when the mark was registered in 1824 was 12 rue du Chapon, directories from 1829 onwards show him working at 22 rue du Temple. Vautrin was born on 30 Jun 1875 in Verdun, dept. Meuse, the son of Jean Vautrin & Jeanne Duroux. He married there on 14 Dec 1814 to Marie Madeleine Harpin, with whom he had two children, both born in Verdun: son Nicolas (b. 29 Sep 1815) and daughter Catherine (b. 26 Apr 1819).

I have not been able to find a record of Vautrin's death in either Paris or Verdun, but presumably it was around 1844 when is mark was cancelled and his son Nicolas assumed his workshop.

Hope this helps!

Thanks a lot blackstone !
With your finding, it means that the item was made between 1838 and 1844. This is a precise information for an object marked with the minerva (1838-1872) !

I have not been able to find a record of Vautrin's death in either Paris

As you may know, birth/wedding/death registers of Paris from the middle age to 1871 burnt during the 'Commune'... such a pity. Only some registers did subsist, and private copies of birth/wedding/death certificates were collected, but most of the information was definitly lost !