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Please Help. Been searching for the past 30 years

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Home -> Reading Silver Hallmarks -> Please Help. Been searching for the past 30 years

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Lyra




Joined: 19 Jul 2010
Posts: 2

Posted: 19/07/2010 
Post subject: Please Help. Been searching for the past 30 years
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I inherited this from my great grandfather. Who died in 1980 at 98 years old. When or where he acquired this platter I have no idea. It used to be silver plated copper but it looks like someone tried to give it a good cleaning and rubbed off all the silver. The flowers around the rim are an 1/8th up to 3/16th of an inch thick and seems to be made of solid silver attached to the copper platter. On the bottom of the platter there is a design of flowers and 4 butterflies. There is what looks like 2 bumble bees that are hard to notice because they are hidden in the design of the flower’s peddle. Bumble bee’s that have 4 wings. The platter is a little over 14 inches across. I don’t think it is very old because it looks like the copper was poured into a mold because the design on the bottom has a lot and very fine details.

The only stamp on the underside of the platter looks like a lion’s, horse’s or a dragon’s head on a pedestal with pointy ears. The markings around the stamp is just dicoloration.

I did bring this platter to an antique dealer and he said he has never seen this stamp before.

I would like to know more about this platter and about how much it would be worth. If you need more photo’s please let me know. I’ve been trying to find more about this platter for 30 years now without success.

Thank you for all your help.

Description:

platter01.png


Description:

platter02.png


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silvermakersmarks
Moderator



Joined: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 1099
Location: United Kingdom

Posted: 20/07/2010 
Post subject: re: Please Help. Been searching for the past 30 years
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Sorry, I don't recognise this mark. Your platter is not going to be worth very much unless you can prove that the applied decorations are actually silver, and then it will probably only be worth the scrap value of the silver content. It would be possible to have it resilvered, but would probably not be worth the expense unless it has a strong sentimental value for you.

Incidentally if your platter has feet it's a salver and if not it's a tray.
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Lyra




Joined: 19 Jul 2010
Posts: 2

Posted: 20/07/2010 
Post subject: re: Please Help. Been searching for the past 30 years
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Thank you for the prompt reply and proper definition. It has three hallow, flattened circular feet. As for the silver/salver a magnet does not stick to it and there is quiet a bit of thick silver/metal on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is silver because he did have money. Maybe I will take it to a jeweler to see if it is really silver. I am not going to do anything to it until I can find out about the mark. There must be a record of it somewhere! LOL…

If I could be positive it wouldn’t loose any value it would be worth having it re-plated as there was a lot of work that went into the beautiful design on the bottom. Like you don’t sand down antique furniture because as soon as you touch it it will loose value. So just in case this is a very rare salver with a rare stamp mark I don’t want to re-plate it, at least not until I find out about the stamp. It must be rare as no-one seems to recognize it LOL.. and it does not look like a cheaply made salver and is heavy/solid.
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