Another Strange Lion Passant

[buckler]

These marks are on a pair of large buckles of c1785-90.

The curious feature is the notch or bump at the top right cut corner of both the Lions Passant Guardant .

Even more curious is a corresponding position bump in the incomplete markers mark of WE, on all four present on this pair. I am naturally suspicious of all bucklemaker marks — is this a co-incidence or what ?

The only other marks are a perfectly normal Duty mark on each buckle, which is crisp and very unlikely to be in any way dubious

The buckles are probably by William Eaton, although until I get to see his 19th March 1781 mark in the Goldsmiths Hall register I cannot be certain. It could be an unGrimwaded mark of William Eley!
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[buckler]

Lost the buckle picture - here it is


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[georgiansilver]

Have seen examples of William Edwards smallwork similar to this but I believe he did not register until 1800. worth checking. Best wishes, Mike.
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[buckler]

Interesting. Wiliam certainly not working pre 1792, and from the absence of a date letter and the style, these buckles are pre 1791 - unless the assay marks are fake.
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[JLDoggett]

Buckler, the Maker's-mark WE appears to have 2 issues, the top of the E (which shows a shadow of the missing upper arm) could have been clogged with a bit of metal. The only way a stamp would leave that outline would be if a piece is missing from the edge of the stamp. As the entire outline is irregular I would hazzard to guess that the stamp was on its last legs and had suffered some damage.
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[buckler]

Thanks Doggett, yes I agree that the WE is a punch with a damaged top right hand corner as this is consistent on each of the four maker's marks. As you say metal clogging the negative area of the punch, or more likely the collapse of some of the negative outline of the E would do this.
The bump in the same area on the edge - may be a number of things, including a deliberate feature of the punch but may be co-incidental and unrelated to the Lion Passant anomaly.

But with a very similiar anomaly to two punches from two separate sources I thought I had better draw attention to it.

My query really is one about the Lion Passant - being a positive feature it must be the punch and not wear on the marks themselves.

I've never seen a Lion Passant with this before. And from almost total absence of replies to this query, nor have quite a lot of people . It may have been a deliberately drilled hole on one punch at Goldsmiths which was used for a specific purpose. There is some evidence that the Lion Passant used on work submitted to London by Exeter silversmiths was distinctive.

The Lion Passant form is a very important tool for determining date and assay office of smaller objects prior to 1800 and the more we can learn about it the better.
From the complete lack of response to am earlier query on the Newcastle Lions Passant which closely resembles the London Lion of the 1740 -1756 period not many people are studying these. Certainly the knowledge that the Newcastle Lion has an additional notch to the top side of the punch in some cases, has enabled me to identify a pair of buckles previously thought to be London, as Newcastle .
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