Old Spoon - Unknown marks

[pdx57]

Old silver spoon with gold wash measuring 7.75" in length. Assume it is English, hash marks seem unusual. Marks are lion passant, leopards head, the other marks are not clear. Any help in dating the spoon would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.stumptownusa.com/33106.jpg
http://www.stumptownusa.com/33106c.jpg
http://www.stumptownusa.com/33106d.jpg

(admin photo edit - images too large - link only - see Posting Requirements )

[agphile]

Interesting. My hasty first thoughts are as follows. The maker’s mark appears to be ID with a sexfoil above and a crescent below, recorded in Jackson for an unidentified maker on a combined spoon and fork of 1690-91. The shape of the spoon (apart from the terminal) and the lion passant and leopard’s head marks all suggest a date between 1680 and 1696 when a trefid terminal would be expected. However, I can’t make sense of the date letter. I wonder whether the moulded terminal to the stem is a Victorian improvement.

The hatching round the marks looks to me as if somebody made a crude start at some engraved decoration or perhaps such decoration has been polished out elsewhere but left here to avoid erasing the marks.

[dognose]

The date letter appears to be 1681.

Trev.

[agphile]

I think Trev is right about the date. I should have been explicit that these are London marks and that I am sure the terminal is a later embellishment.

[pdx57]

Thanks everyone!!!