Postby Bahner » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:44 am
Hello and congrats, beautiful piece.
As Germany never had import marks, I guess that halfmoon and crown were punched when this piece was sold in Germany. As to the “A” mark, supposedly for Vienna (the other Viennese mark mentioned in this thread was the “A 1” mark for the Wiener Neustadt): according to Knies (who should know, he was the first warden of the Austrian-Hungarian empire) it was struck as a separate mark beside the Diana head between 1866 and 1872 only. After that is was integrated with the Diana head and the number for fineness in one mark, as can be seen on this piece. So the “A” here stands for something else. What, I don’t know. It strongly reminds me of a Belgian mark for a silver fineness of 800/1000. Maybe the “Z” was used by a German seller.
As to Georg Adam Scheid: born 1838 (in Schönau, Germany), active since 1858 in the Viennese workshop of M. Markowitsch. Married one of Markowitsch’s daughters and joined the company, which was renamed Markowitsch & Scheid. The two separated in 1882, after that Markowitsch & Scheid was owned by Adolf Markowitsch alone (a son of M. Markowitsch, this company shut down in 1898), Scheid continued on his own, his company was named “G.A. Scheid”. He produced small silver ware and jewellery. In 1884 he opend up his own affinery (“G.A. Scheid’sche Affinerie”), which became very sucessful, which branches in various countries. Scheid retired in 1911 or 1912 (looks like he died in 1913), in 1920 the company “G.A. Scheid” merged with Ludwig Rainer (another affinery) in Vienna. Production of jewellery and silverware was given up at the end of 1922, the remaining workmen joined the Scheid’sche affinery. The affinery continued to exist and merged in 1952 with L. Rössler to form the “Ögussa GmbH”. Maybe it still exists today.
Best wishes, Bahner
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