Unknown maker 18th century American Shellback Tablespoons

[legrandmogol]

I recently acquired this fun set of 4 shellback tablespoons. They are most likely signed N dot C but possible N dot G or even possible, but less likely D dot N. The seller was in Pennsylvania and I know sometimes these things don't travel too far. If anyone has seen this mark before I would be grateful for your input. I took close-up shots of all 4 marks and I also turned the only one that sort of looks like a D upside down.

[OldSchool]

If it is N•C, then you could try Nathaniel Coleman. His was a silversmith based in Burlington, New Jersey, from around 1790 through to the mid 1830s, and his mark was very similar to the one on your spoons.

There are some examples of his marks on this Roots Web reference to Nathaniel Coleman:

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~silversm ... /64484.htm

[wev]

If it is N•C, then you could try Nathaniel Coleman. His was a silversmith based in Burlington, New Jersey, from around 1790 through to the mid 1830s, and his mark was very similar to the one on your spoons.

There are some examples of his marks on this Roots Web reference to Nathaniel Coleman:

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~silversm ... /64484.htm

These spoons were made at least a decade before Coleman was born. Another spoon with this mark was offered at auction a while ago, but I had no luck tracking a likely maker working c 1740. I have not decided, from the images I've seen, whether it is N•C or N•G

FYI, I abandoned my Rootsweb pages seven years ago in favor of my own independent site: http://www.americansilversmiths.org/index.html

[legrandmogol]

Thanks Wev. I was hoping you would chime in. I had a feeling these would probably languish under the 'unknown makers' category. I figured they were too old to be Colemans as well (though I am always on the lookout for early new jersey Silversmiths).I had no idea you had started a new page. I will be sure to make the switch from now as I utilized your old roots web page constantly