Farnum or Fairchild?

[dwurzel]

Can anyone help me with this spoon? I don't know how to identify pseudo mark origins, and both fairchil and Farnum have similar RF marks. Thanks, Don



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[Waylander]

Don, why do you think the marks are pseudo marks? To me, looks like farily authentic British marks (Lion Passant, duty mark for between 1784 & 1837).

Waylander
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[dwurzel]

Waylander,

I do not see the assay office mark or the date mark. only what appears to be replication of the duty mark and the sterling standard. The lion also doesn't look right. The tail has a bushy knob on the end and the back leg sticks out to far in the aft position. The "soveriegn" is also looking up instead of striaght forward. I am not an expert, so maybe these are normal variances, but they just don't look right to me. Thanks, Don
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[Waylander]

Hmm, true, but some pieces were marked without an Assay Office. The lack of a date letter is surprising. Perhaps I might see what other people think.

Waylander
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[admin]

I've seen incomplete English mark sets on spoons of this period, but almost always on little coffee spoons and these tend to have a date mark, what size is this one?
The sovereign's head does look like a legit English one, but the lion looks a bit wonky.
But, even without seeing the marks, I would have pegged this spoon as American. I'd go with Farnum, think Fairchild would have been working a little too early for this piece.

Regards, Tom
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