I understand that the capital letter in the doorway is an indicator for Hamburg Assay Masters and 4 Masters with different letters functioned at the same time. The nearest dated Assay Master using the letter "A" that I found was "Jacob Nicolaus Wilhelm Schäffer" (1828-1851). There are examples of this Master's mark with other maker's marks shown in the Germany reference section of our Forum. However if my new spoon was made nearer the "personalisation" date of 1876 then who may have been the next Assay Master using "A"? My hope is, that the silversmith mark can be identified for the spoon and gives working dates that helps and confirm if "Schaeffner" or another Assay Master was involved in its validation. I see from our reference section that the Hamburg guild was dissolved in 1865 but there was a transitional period before the standardisation of all German silver in 1886. Was my spoon marked during that transitional period?
The makers mark could be "WII", ", "IIM" or even alpha numerical "W11" or "11M". I even thought in the first instance that maybe it was cyrilic lettering but there could be damage to the W/M in the makers mark and there could be a pellet in the centre of the mark.
I hope there is the knowledge from the Forum to sort out the maker of my spoon and to expand on what I believe about the Hamburg Guild and the Assay Masters.
Fishless