Posted 12 years ago
EXCALIBER12
(1 item)
I have a set of these tea sippers but do not understand where these marking are from. i was told they are american but as i see it there is a picture of the queens crown on it.
TEA SIPPERS.....WHERE FROM?????? | ||
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The marks are pretty hard to see in detail.. lord knows they are a pain to try to photograph! Most of the silver I'm familiar with is British. From what I can tell, I would say they are British. This is only from what I 'think' the markings are. The crown would be for Sheffield, what looks like the letter "W"would be the 1914 year stamp, and the lion passant would be the sterling mark. Since it doesn't have the duty mark of the king or queen that was used 1784 - 1890 you can tell it was not during that period. British colonies silversmiths used something referred to as pseudo hallmarks that didn't really mean much of anything other than certain ones were used regularly by certain silversmiths. If you could make out the date letter and see if it fits for a 1914 (or perhaps another) year letter on Sheffield silver, you can at least tell if it was British or not. Look around this site and see if anything looks like what you have on yours.
http://www.silvercollection.it/englishsilverhallmarks.html
If there isn't a letter that matches yours from the era that doesn't include the duty stamp, it's from somewhere else. Sorry I'm not much help with older American silver. :-( Good luck in your research!
No you helped out a lot. I can put all the pieces together from here.
THANK YOU
I can see the marks better now the first one is a crown but with more of a loop than the normal squared off. the second mark is a sheild with 4 squares in it and the last mark that i thought was an a is a lion
Lion (.925 silver) with the crown would be Sheffield, England.
Interesting fact I found by taking a quick look
Wallace silversmith makes the identical tea sippers. Wallace is an American manufacturer of sterling silver flatware that opened in the early 1800's. There is or was a line called Wallace of Sheffield so the mark might of came from that line.
Meaning those marks are pseudo marks (have no meaning/ fake). This was popular between late 1800s to early 1900s. This really doesn't mean much since back then America was making comparable silver wear. It might of been to give it recognition. You will find that Wallace makes some beautiful pieces.
Here is a sale of a set of Wallace tea sippers. The 4th pic will have your marks. They state there from 1940s. I assume you could contact Wallace to find out though.
http://www.rubylane.com/item/694606.../Iced-Tea-Straw-Spoons-Hearts.
Here is an article on pseudo marks, which helped me a while back on being stuck on certain marks that didn't make sense.
http://www.marks4antiques.com/pseudo-marks-on-antique-silver.htm