Information Required on Silver Donkey ???

Can anyone help me to identify and value the attached donkey, which I have had for approx 40 years?

I would be most grateful for any information you could provide me with.

Many Thanks,
Beggar :smiley:
General 022.jpg

Can you provide a better picture of the hallmarks please??

Thanks for your prompt reply, please find attached a zoomed in version of previous.
The first two marks are quite clear, I havenā€™t a clue what the third is though?
General 049b.jpg

The center ā€œ925ā€ mark tells us its not English. The style says Mexican or South American. Iā€™ll check some of my books and look for a match.

Thanks for joining us here on silver-collector.

Uncle Vic

Hi Uncle Vic,

did you have any joy matching the other marks yet ?

Beggar :slight_smile:

Sorry, I did not have any luck on themā€¦actually to be honest I forgot to look until now, thanks for reminding me. Iā€™m retired and got busy doing nothingā€¦ Still no luck. American sterling almost always has the word ā€œsterlingā€ on it along with the name or the mark of the maker. In about 1970 there was an obscure treaty between many north, central, and south american countries that standardized the use of the mark ā€œ.925ā€ to represent what we know as ā€œsterling silverā€ā€¦i.e., that the metal is an alloy of 92.5% silver and the rest is another metal, such as copper, to make the soft silver more durable. The ā€œ925ā€ today is seldom used on American sterling items other than jewelry, the word ā€œsterlingā€ is the norm. In Mexican and other Central American countries the ā€œ.925ā€ is in common use since (and before) the 1970 treaty. Most South American silver comes from the west coast of that continent, places like Peru and Bolivia and a lot of it Iā€™ve seen is actually .950 silver, or 95% pure vs. the sterling standard of 92.5%.

I have some books that show a lot of Mexican marks and your donkey is not among them. Sorry for the long response, but my gut tells me its from Mexico, probaly one of the less known Taxco makers.

Regards,

Uncle Vic