Help with maker mark

[larrywseale]

I know it's a longshot.

Serving Spoon about about 8 1/4" long. Handmade & a bit "crude" - file mark are visible, bowl shape is odd (a bit asymmetrical) & the monogram engravings on the underside look like they were done by a child. Purity isn't marked but acid tested as coin or sterling. Thanks

[Hose_dk]

Mark look German to me.
The spoon looks like late 16XX beginning 1700hundred. I.e around 300 years old.
I have not found a Danish match - but as written I think that Germany is likely.
Purity would be 800 or 830 - i.e between 11lod to 13.5lod.
The asymmetrical has come from use. Its simply Word.

[larrywseale]

Thanks, I start looking for a European origin.

I got .900 or .925 with acid but I'm a bit color blind. Guess I'll have set up the water bucket & weigh it to get the specific gravity to get closer to the actual purity.

[Hose_dk]

Forget sterling - you are from US and prefer sterling.
Very unlikely that anyone used sterling at that time/place.
I have never understud how asid test could determin purity. A long time ago I made a tread where I tested different purity. In theory it should Work, but in practice I am not so sure.

[larrywseale]

Forget sterling - you are from US and prefer sterling.
Very unlikely that anyone used sterling at that time/place.
I have never understud how asid test could determin purity. A long time ago I made a tread where I tested different purity. In theory it should Work, but in practice I am not so sure.

True that you can't with acid alone but you can use Schwerter's solution, nitric acid & potassium dichromate, & you'll get colors that vary from bright red for fine silver, dark red for sterling/coin, reddish brown for .800 silver & all the to green for an alloy that's 50% copper. Still subjective to a great extent but but better than nothing. I will, however, get the specific gravity sometime this weekend & have a better idea. Or if someone has an xrf gun for sale at a price I can afford (about four bucks max :-) I'll be happy to give it a good home.

The mark may very well be German in origin & the spoon made in the 17th/18th century. Would be nice if there were perhaps a city & purity mark. It could also be coin silver & made on someone's Pennsylvania farm a hundred years ago - certainly more questions than answers & likely to remain a mystery

[larrywseale]

Possible that the "blob" in the mark, right above what looks like the two letters, could be a city mark, perhaps a crown?

[Francais]

I don't think I can be much help on identifying the mark, but I thought I might point out a few things.
I think you are being a bit hard on your spoon. The only asymmetry I see in the bowl is some right hand tip wear, caused by being owned by right hand people scraping the bottom of their bowls, quite common. I would be very surprised if any file marks were the result of the maker, but just caused by use and abuse. I used to be able to tell that one of our local smelts had a piece by the file marks they used during testing. The original engraving, on the end of the spoon, doesn't look all that crude. It looks like a con-joined letter monogram, somewhat more common in Germanic countries. The next engraved monogram was of course added later. I don't think I have ever seen a wriggle work monogram, and I have seen a lot of early silver. The shape of the letters also looks European, the S being a bit unusual. Wriggle work is an easy method of engraving. The mark looks absolutely like a crown above JS and two very odd marks that look like quotation marks, it should be easy to remember. The mark is not shown, I think, in Theo's list nor in any of the volumes of Rosenberg. So while it could be Germany, I would think eastern Europe might be more likely. There sometimes are subtle diffences in trifid spoons, and while I don't recognize a specific country of origin, if you get a moderator to move this thread to Other Countries someone else might.
Penultimately, while it is nice to discuss the silver content, it only occasionally determines the country of origin. Only a few countries had absolute rules about purity, France and Britain for example. Many German states had a lower standard, but this doesn't rule out higher grades of allow being used, it only set a base standard. So if you lived in Augsburg, and the standard was 13/16, you could still walk in with a piece of scrap sterling or coins and ask that your silver to be made be kept at a higher standard.
Finally if I get a $4 xrf gun I will be keeping it myself, but I have taken pieces in to a local, friendly, gold buyer and they have shot pieces for me.
Maurice

[larrywseale]

Thanks all